


The Insect King

by KrysMcScience



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: And also regular sluts, Assault, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Basically there are no happy endings here, Bigotry & Prejudice, But there is no shame in that whatsoever, Canon death of a major character (which literally all of us know is temporary), Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Cultural Differences, Cuz it is Long as FUCK, Genocidal sociopath POV, However:, I'm my own beta but it's been a while since I read it over, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, MAYBE Child Grooming (if you squint really REALLY hard), Obligatory joke about how Raditz and Nappa are there too I guess, Other stuff I probably forgot, Power Imbalance, Saiyans are battle sluts, Several ACTUAL murders, Several attempted murders, Sexual Harassment, So yeah, The smut in this one’s actually consensual for once!!!, Vegeta/Recoome (referenced), Vegeta/Zarbon (referenced), also:, as usual, child endangerment, fucked up families, shut up, that's not a word, what do you mean 'concise'?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:07:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28262115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysMcScience/pseuds/KrysMcScience
Summary: Freeza always thought he knew best – certainly better than his family, at any rate – and so he saw no harm in surrounding himself with weak, lowly creatures.  There was something fascinating about them, after all, so why not have an empire, his own personal anthill that he could build and destroy on a whim?  And why not single out a certain spitfire prince, who happened to be far more entertaining than the rest of the vermin?Surely, one lone soldier in his hive won’t bring it crashing down around him...
Relationships: Frieza/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	The Insect King

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something other than Vegeta’s POV for a change, and seeing how fast and loose I can play with manga canon. _Specifically_ manga canon, because the updated Broly movie kinda shot my King Kold headcanon in the face, and I like my idea for him better. :,) [Also, yes, I spell his name with a K. It just... _looks_ better in the narrative, okay? ._.]
> 
> Random aside: It will be very heavily implied that Freeza’s species lives for QUITE a long time, because that is also a headcanon of mine. Why would Freeza want immortality, then, you might ask? Because a long life does not equal an inability to die, and that sort of thing is a big no-no as far as Freeza’s control issues are concerned. :D
> 
> Random aside, PART TWO: For certain scenes, I included little sketches I will probably never clean up or finish, because I figured it's better than leaving them to gather dust like this fic almost did.

_'Compared to us, they are nothing. Mere insects.'_

_'I hear you, Papa. But isn't it boring, once you've killed them all off?'_

_'Do **not** question me, whelp. The strong need **no one** , and you would do well to remember that.'_

_'...Yes, Papa.'_

Whenever those below him grate at his nerves, sparking annoyance with their incompetence, Freeza remembers that conversation. He remembers how his father had held out a hand into the vacuum of space, and roiled it with crimson ki, snuffing out the meager lifeforms on the shining planet below in an effortless instant. He remembers how his brother had stood silent and stoic nearby, arms crossed, nodding in agreement that it all needed to go.

And he remembers how he'd watched it all burn away, and thought about what a _waste_ it was.

Naturally, even then, it wasn't that Freeza wanted to spare any lives, or cared if people died. But he's always been the pragmatic sort, and just a bit greedy as well, figuring that anything and everything can have a use to him if he utilizes it just right. So, logically speaking, everything weaker than and beneath him must _also_ have a use, even if that use boils down purely to cheap entertainment.

He _does_ need the entertainment, too, as he's just _so_ easily bored. Being as powerful as he is, Freeza can't even help it, not when there's no one alive but his own relatives who can offer him any sort of challenge. It's why he's taken up the mantle he has, of emperor and executive, commanding a vast network of soldiers and slaves alike to offer just about any service a customer has the credits for. So whenever he's annoyed, and itching to burn everything away with his power gathering at the tip of a finger, Freeza reflects on that old conversation...

And more often than not, he stays his hand.

Those around him, the weak and spineless who serve him, aren't worth getting annoyed over, even if his temper tends to disagree. They also aren't worth the effort and attention it would take to kill them, even if sometimes he would really like to. Freeza doesn't need them – he is _terribly_ strong, after all, and can survive alone if he has to – but he prefers to have something to occupy his time with. Thus, he lets them live. It has nothing to do with mercy, or attachment, but pure selfish amusement.

Freeza would never admit to it, but he's very much _different_ from his family in that regard. His father has no empire nor minions, save for when he declares the accomplishments of his sons as his own, and is an unknown entity for how he spends his days slaughtering all those unfortunate enough to cross his path. His brother has a smattering of followers, whom he treats with more respect than his own clan simply to spite their father, but he uses them for nothing more than razing every planet he comes across to a lifeless husk. And Freeza's own child, sired at his father's insistence...honestly, he forgets where the brat even _is_ most of the time. Probably somewhere lost and confused, though, and not worth remembering.

Unlike any of them, Freeza veritably _surrounds_ himself with worthless insects, dabbling as he does in politics, trade, and no small amount of crime. He doesn't even bother to kill most of them, too concerned with how they might be of some benefit to him, and – regardless of the warnings his father had issued throughout his childhood – just a little bit _intrigued_ by the constant struggle around him.

The weak have so many _problems_ , Freeza can see, and finds endlessly fascinating. He can't even _imagine_ being in their place, screaming and clawing as they do for mere scraps to call their own. Sometimes when he amuses himself with their troubles, he remembers, begrudgingly, how he'd spent his earliest days in the overpowering shadows of his clan. Bowing his head and catering to the whims of his father, trading hurtful blows – both verbal and physical – with his brother... But Freeza had gotten _stronger_. He was born a prodigy, his power swelling even as he did nothing, and soon enough, he was strong enough to where his family no longer dared to oppose him.

Even when he'd been approached by a god, a being of unimaginable power he had no chance of defeating, he'd only been asked – _asked_ , not ordered – to do something he'd already wanted to do in the first place.

So it makes no sense to Freeza, how so many of the pitiful creatures around him never learn, never grow stronger, only ever cowering and squalling in their misfortune. It _disgusts_ him, even as it intrigues him. But there is nothing more wretched – more incomprehensible, infuriating, and completely _enthralling_ – than the worms who refuse to accept their place. The lowly who believe themselves better than they are grate at Freeza's vast patience far more than anything, for why should mere dirt see itself as gold?

Freeza knows many of this type, seemingly attracted to his might as though mere proximity makes it their own. His higher officers, those like Zarbon and Ginyu, like to fashion themselves after him, assured of their own superiority, but always doomed to fall short as pale imitations. Always, and without exception, because they don't really understand Freeza's mindset. And how could they? They're as worthless as everyone else, inconsequential in power when compared to their lord, and foolishly thinking that what strength they _do_ have puts them in a position of moral authority.

If you are strong, they believe, it is your right to do as you please with the weak. The weak exist and deserve for you to hurt, and maim, and kill them – whenever, wherever, and _how_ ever you choose – because you _can_ , and because you _want_ to. And that is how you _must_ be if you want to be strong, they believe, strong in the way that Freeza is; all by crushing the weak brutally underheel.

He can understand how they've come to such a conclusion, of course, but it's so far from the truth that it's too funny to correct at this point. However true it is that 'might makes right', in the emperor's own words, what he sees as _right_ doesn't involve the use of his overwhelming power to subjugate and torment every last person around him. Despite whatever the vermin who serve him must think, the fact of the matter _isn't_ that Freeza believes that the weak should suffer beneath the strong. It's so much more _simple_ than that, because aside from his fascination with their endless suffering...

The weak don't concern him at _all_.

Does a dragon go out of its way to trample an anthill? Does a twister change its path to uproot the trees?

_Does a god strike down a few measly non-believers?_

His minions fail to notice how rarely Freeza involves himself in the actual dirty work, and how scarcely he steps in to break and rip and tear anyone or thing that challenges his authority. Why should he waste the energy? He doesn't ever need to, not when those in his service will happily do it for him. Freeza _enjoys_ causing pain, this much is true, and enjoys killing even more, but when he chooses to indulge in the fun himself, it's so much _greater_ than the petty sadism those around him think it to be. For while it _is_ still very much sadism, it's also not anything _personal_. With every scream he wrenches from a body, or life he snuffs out with the flick of a finger, Freeza thinks not of their agony or what they might be leaving behind in death, but is instead reminded of just how _fragile_ everything is, how easily it all _breaks_ under his will.

And how so many of his victims could have been spared, if only they had learned their proper place and submitted to his control.

It's _delightful_.

None of his men could ever hope to emulate that, not when they derive so much pleasure from simple anguish, and the easy task of cutting down the weak. They don't understand _anything_.

Until, on an average day like any other, one of them suddenly does.

Of all the worthless nothings who could have figured him out, Freeza never would have expected it to be _that_ one. After all, he's never expected _anything_ , aside from perhaps mild exasperation (and a tinge of unease that he'll never admit to), where the Saiyans are concerned. He should have no _reason_ to expect anything, for they are singularly reckless, persistent, and far too proud for how meager their strength is. And yet, it's a mere Saiyan _child_ that surprises him. A lowly, primitive thing, a weak and obstinate fool who refuses to learn his place no matter _how_ many times he's put back into it, more assured of his own superiority than any other Freeza has or will _ever_ meet...

And he sees right through Freeza's polite facade barely a _week_ into his employment.

“Can you _not_ see you're wasting his time, Zarbon?” the tiny prince scoffs, and it gets his commanding officer to stumble halfway through a report. Zarbon surely thinks it's an important one, given his long and winding explanation, but he fails to see that he's been expounding on some minor rebellion that Freeza _really_ doesn't care about. It's so _pointless_ in the grand scheme of things. Freeza had resigned himself to hearing about it anyway, though, up until the moment his newest recruit speaks up without permission. No one's expecting it at all, much less Freeza, and the question the boy challenges Zarbon with is like a breath of fresh air after the dark void of space.

Freeza keeps a careful watch on Vegeta after that, observing from afar, and is both appalled and entranced by what he sees.

Vegeta's life is an exercise in sheer misery, full of vicious attacks and near-constant hunger, but the prince pushes through every last setback like he was _born_ to. He just doesn't know when to quit. He picks fights when it's clear he can't win, rises to every minor insult that's thrown his way, and he doesn't _stop_ , _**EVER**_ , even though it would make his life so much easier if he just accepted his meager lot. He's tenacious, and arrogant, in ways that he has no reason to be, and Freeza _doesn't_ _ **understand**_.

If _he_ had been in Vegeta's place, he'd have given up ages ago. And yet, Vegeta presses on unabated.

With how wild and unruly the prince is, Freeza thinks at first that he must have been imagining things. Sure, the child had stated precisely what was on his lord's mind at the time, but that didn't necessarily have to mean he'd experienced a heretofore impossible glimmer of understanding. _No one_ had ever understood Freeza's perspective. So he thinks that it could have been a coincidence, or Vegeta's purely unsociable spite, especially when it had the boy cornered and half-broken by an infuriated Zarbon soon afterward. Stupid of the brat, really, to mouth off to someone stronger, even if he'd happened to be right. So with him being so annoyingly _Saiyan_ , how could he possibly know _anything_ of a superior being's mindset?

Freeza starts to question that line of thinking, though, as more time passes, and the vague inkling that Vegeta knows more than he lets on doesn't go away. It's never anything that confirms suspicion, just small things here and there, but it's enough to rouse more than a fleeting interest. Despite how his father had warned him against it, Freeza finds himself becoming more and more curious about a creature that should have been _well_ beneath his notice.

He sits in suppressed awe when Vegeta is ordered to speak more respectfully to his lord, only for the order to be shrugged off without care, and a huff of, “Why bother? It's not like he cares about _my_ opinion.” It is absolutely true, though Freeza says nothing of it, and no amount of cajoling from Zarbon or Dodoria can persuade the prince to think otherwise, either.

He notices with budding wonder how Vegeta always opts to report to those Freeza keeps closest to him, rather than bothering him directly. And once he's left with no other options, when he speaks to his lord, Vegeta keeps it short and simple. It has Zarbon proclaiming the boy as deficient, not realizing how dull and occasionally exhausting Freeza finds all the posturing meant to impress him. Really, the short and simple route Vegeta takes is _refreshing_ by comparison.

And he looks on and privately marvels at how Vegeta does everything in his minuscule power to stay off of Freeza's radar. He carries out his missions near-flawlessly, doesn't harm the more valuable medics and techs, and – no matter _how_ many fights he gets into – he doesn't let injury stop him from getting things done.

It all speaks of how Vegeta _knows_ not to waste Freeza's time, that he scarcely even _registers_ in the tyrant's mind and ought to keep it that way...and yet, he's still so unbelievably idiotic and _arrogant_ , there can't be any chance at all that he could have figured out _anything_.

Freeza quickly learns better of that thought when he watches his on-and-off curiosity get kicked around in the training hall, just shy of fifteen years old and far too small for his age. Vegeta has no chance of beating Dodoria, but he takes every solid punch with grim resolve, not giving up even when the one-sided battle leaves him unable to move. No amount of violence dissuades him from spitting insults and threats he can't back up, and eventually – expressly forbidden from killing the brat – Dodoria walks out. The whole thing is not an altogether _uncommon_ occurrence, but it's what he witnesses after it's over that Freeza will _never_ forget.

Once Vegeta thinks he's alone, unaware that his lord can keep tabs on him from anywhere in the station, he sits up to assess the damage he's taken, serious and thoughtful in a way that no one – save perhaps his paltry guard detail – has ever seen before. His injuries aren't life-threatening, and thus nothing he can gain a wild boost in power from, yet a calculating look still takes hold of him, a look that screams how the boy did all this _intentionally_...and he just _nods_ , as if everything has gone according to plan.

Every blow Vegeta takes, every reckless decision of his, even his single-minded drive to never willingly bow to those better than him...

It all plays a part in some greater purpose.

And the mystery of it is _irresistible_ to Freeza.

He wants answers, but it's trickier than expected to get Vegeta alone without anyone asking their own questions, which Freeza doesn't want to deal with. He doesn't feel like listening to the concerns of his highest officers, or having the prince's guard up in arms, so he gets creative. Zarbon is confused at the mission briefing that's laid out for him the day after, citing how the planet has literally nothing useful on its surface, but Freeza claims that he wants it anyway, clean and pristine and ready to sell. Then, to remind Zarbon that he doesn't care to be questioned, he assigns it straight to Vegeta instead.

He'd known perfectly well that Zarbon would question such a nonsense assignment. He also knows perfectly well that there is absolutely _zero_ chance that the Saiyans can complete it successfully.

Because the mission briefing conveniently leaves out that four of the planet's moons will be full.

With unbridled glee, Freeza watches through one of the attack ball camera feeds as Vegeta's men lay waste to the world's surface, unable to control their primal forms under such intense moonlight the way their prince can. At only fifteen, Vegeta can't yet command them in that state, regardless of how hard he tries to force them to obey. He's too young and small to take seriously, so he has to fight for his own guards' submission. It's a tall order, given that they can't recognize him anymore, and don't hold back to avoid hurting him the way he has to for them. At the end of it all, his efforts to control them decimate ten cities and an entire mountain range before just the weaker of the two can be brought to heel.

The mission is an abject failure, Vegeta's very first, and he returns to the station a week late, jaw and shoulders tense even _before_ he's told to report to Freeza. The sick foreboding he must be feeling can only increase tenfold when he approaches the office with his squad, only to be met with a smugly smirking Zarbon and Dodoria, who make no effort to hide their laughter when they tell Vegeta to go in alone. After all, they say, _he's_ the one who couldn't control his men.

Hearing Vegeta dismiss his own guards is utterly delightful in and of itself, but having the belligerent boy step inside with a hollow, almost _haunted_ , look of resignation... _that_ , Freeza thinks, is a memory he will be treasuring for a good long while.

_' **Surprise,** little one! For all your efforts to avoid it, you've been on my radar this **entire time**.'_

He bids for Vegeta to sit before his workstation, with a smile he knows doesn't reach his eyes, and watches with satisfaction as he's obeyed straight away. For the first time he's ever seen from a Saiyan, there's not even a word of dissent. Once the prince is settled in the chair, hands fisted on his lap and frizzing tail betraying his unease, Freeza asks politely, “Would you care to explain what it is you've done wrong, Vegeta?”

He's surprised when Vegeta meets his gaze, with the merest hint of that oddly calculating look. It strikes Freeza then, how serious this boy is, and how much he's endured for how young he is, so when the question is answered without any lies or hesitation, despite how failure always results in harsh punishment, it leaves Freeza feeling almost _impressed_. “I assumed the intel in the mission briefing would be accurate,” Vegeta says coldly, eyes not straying from his lord's, “and I failed to stop my men from running loose.”

Funny, really, how he doesn't say 'running _wild_ '. Smile widening in a way he's been told is objectively terrifying, Freeza points out, “You're not really making a good case for yourself. Shouldn't you be covering _up_ your failure, rather than laying it out?”

“I've learned from it. It won't happen again,” Vegeta tells him shortly, and he nods, chuckling.

“I expect it won't,” Freeza replies, ever so pleasant and tapping on the surface of his desk with a finger; the one he prefers to fire from. If he was only _almost_ impressed before, he certainly feels a touch of it now, for Vegeta doesn't so much as flinch. “My, my, but who would have guessed? The little _monkey_ can learn new tricks...” He says it purely to see what will happen, and though Vegeta's ears and cheeks tinge slightly pink, Freeza gets no other reaction.

Stunning, considering how the prince flies off the handle whenever anyone _else_ calls him that.

It's another thing to find vaguely impressive, though Freeza puts it aside for now, more concerned with needling out the answers he wants. He expects he'll have to get Vegeta fearing for his life before any significant progress can be made, given that the boy is mindbogglingly difficult at the _best_ of times, so Freeza takes to his usual favored tactic of slow intimidation. It's never failed him before, and he has no reason to expect it will now. “Tell me...are you aware of what happens when a soldier disappoints me?”

“You're not going to kill me.”

Silence descends over them, thick and heavy, and Freeza can hardly suppress his disbelief at how quickly he's been shut down. Even _more_ unbelievable, Vegeta is still sitting calmly before him and holding his stare, as though nothing terribly important or impertinent had been said at all. “...Excuse you?” he asks, in a tone that dares the prince to repeat what he'd said. He's amazed when Vegeta actually _does_ repeat it, like it's the most obvious thing in the universe, completely unconcerned in a way that adds yet another layer of mystery to this incomprehensible riddle of a boy. “And _what_ , pray tell,” Freeza begins silkily, “makes you think _that_?”

“If you were going to kill me, we wouldn't still be talking,” Vegeta answers, and he's so right that it _burns_.

Freeza's hand lifts before he can stop himself, ki flaring, and a line of blood beads up on Vegeta's neck. Again, the prince doesn't flinch, not even looking away as a thin wisp of smoke curls up from the hissing hole in the back of his chair. If the beam had been any less precise, he'd have been decapitated on the spot. “Consider yourself _dead_ ,” Freeza tells him cheerfully, morbid fascination rising when Vegeta _nods_ , like he _gets it_ , not even looking surprised when he's asked, “Now then, since you are now _dead_ , what, precisely, can be said about your life? Has it amounted to anything, _really_?”

“It's nothing I can't take pride in,” Vegeta answers immediately, and that is simultaneously confusing and _interesting_. “I didn't submit, not to anyone who tried to force me down.”

“You've submitted to _me_ ,” Freeza reminds him, smirking cruelly, and the reply to that is just as curious.

“I'm _stubborn_ , not suicidal.” It gets the tyrant to laugh, a rarely genuine sound that he hasn't heard from himself in a long while, and Vegeta watches him until he calms. That calculating look is back, the prince doing nothing to hide it now, before he states, like it's the plain and clear fact he shouldn't even know it is, “You didn't want that planet.”

“No, I didn't,” Freeza agrees. “But can you guess what I _do_ want?”

He doubts it, but appreciates how Vegeta mulls it over in thoughtful silence, anyway, before the answer provides yet another wonderful surprise. “To talk. About something only I can tell you.” From that moment on, though he is still a weak insect and incomparable to Freeza's might, Vegeta can never again be a worthless nothing. Not when, in his lord's eyes, he has revealed that behind all the pride and reckless arrogance, there is a stunning amount of _intelligence_.

There can't _not_ be, because _no one_ has ever seen through Freeza quite so easily.

Thoroughly intrigued, the dictator leans forward in his seat, fingers laced together atop the crescent workstation. “Really. And why do you think _that_?” he asks, legitimately wanting to know, even though he's never _cared_ to before. Why _should_ he care about the thoughts and reasons of those beneath him? Until now, such paltry things held no meaning or value to him, and so Freeza has never asked for them before – not even _once_.

“The mission isn't important to you, and you asked about my life,” Vegeta replies, shrugging like it's obvious. “When it comes to the planet trade, soldier perspectives in it are about the only thing you _don't_ know.”

“Aptly put,” Freeza decides, settling back to examine the boy before him. “But it's hardly the perspectives of _soldiers_ I'm interested in, Vegeta.”

The claim is taken, considered, and accepted with a nod, Vegeta's voice quiet and even when he guesses lowly, “Just mine?”

“Just yours.”

The prince's brows furrow, uncertainty lacing his features, but he doesn't ask for a reason, and that just delights Freeza further. It's to be expected, really, that the one person to figure him out would also know that he _hates_ to explain himself, but it's another thing entirely to witness the proof of it. “What do you want to know?” Vegeta asks finally, still wary and ill at ease, but with the tension seeping slowly from his frame.

It's difficult to put to words, even though Freeza has puzzled over the matter on many an occasion throughout the years, so he admittedly stalls a bit, taking up the half-empty goblet that's always within his reach. He swirls the dark wine within, humming in thought, before he poses the first question. “You claim to be satisfied with your life, correct?” Vegeta nods again, which is so utterly _baffling_ with what Freeza knows of it. Even now, he can see the bruises left over from a lost fight the boy had been taunted into, and hear the complaints of an empty stomach, lacking as always in proper nourishment. But then, he reasons, perhaps it's simply because Vegeta doesn't know any better, having been drafted into service so young. “Tell me, then – as you are still, in fact, _dead_ -” Freeza finds himself oddly pleased when Vegeta smirks at that. “-where on a scale of, let's say, one to ten, would you place how much you've _enjoyed_ the life you've lived?”

“That depends,” Vegeta replies, abruptly stone-faced and sour. “Can I go into the negatives?”

“We'll put it at a _one_ , then,” Freeza decides, spoken with good humor, despite being irritated at the way his bafflement is _rising_ , rather than diminishing. How strange this child is, he thinks, and admits aloud without thought. “That's very _odd_ , Vegeta. You _do_ realize what a conflicting account you're presenting, claiming to be satisfied with a life you haven't enjoyed?”

The boy's eyes are narrowed, the dark pools filled with wary contempt, and when he speaks, his voice is hard with the years of his suffering. “As long as I can fight, I can be proud of what I've survived,” Vegeta tells Freeza, every word emphasized so it will not be lost on his lord just how important that simple fact is. “And if I can die proud, that's enough to be satisfying.”

“You died _here_ ,” Freeza reminds him. “So can you really call your life satisfying, having never _enjoyed_ it?”

“It doesn't matter,” Vegeta answers, incomprehensible still. “Death is unavoidable, but giving up, and losing everything I am just to spare a bit of pain, doesn't have to be. As long as that's true, I will _always_ fight.”

“But you hardly ever _win_ ,” Freeza stresses, “so why go on as you are?”

Realization floods into Vegeta's face, brows rising just so as he comes to a sudden understanding of why he's been summoned. He then narrows his eyes again, not in contempt – though it is still there, lurking in the background – but in contemplation, his next words being chosen with utmost care. “In war,” Vegeta begins, slowly and purposefully, “the results are dependent on a number of things: Resources, power, endurance, skill, tactics, and luck. With enough of any one of those on their own, a battle can be won. You can also lose a battle, if you're lacking in those things, but as long as it's not decisive, the war will continue.” He pauses, waiting until Freeza motions him on, as though to be certain he's being heard before he makes his point. “A war cannot end until one side has fallen...and I _haven't yet_.”

Those last words ring with finality, and just like that, so much of what Vegeta does snaps into perfect, reasonable place.

He has scant resources to work with, and a glaring lack of luck, but he's a tactical genius on the battlefield, one who trains obsessively to hone his skills, every single day without fail. Complimenting that, his power rises steadily with every senseless fight he dives into, whether or not he wins in the end. His endurance, too, is inarguable, for if there is one thing anyone on this station has learned about Vegeta by now, it is that he can _take_ a beating.

And every time he picks a fight he shouldn't, he _holds out longer_.

If events continue to play out as they are, Vegeta has all the time in the world to simply stand his ground and endure, over and over and for longer and longer until he outlasts every attacker by _wearing them out_. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Saiyan prince is willing to go through that pain, either, as long as it means he can force his every last opponent to _give up_.

Freeza sits across from Vegeta in silent amazement, very nearly breathless at how he has the answer he's been puzzling over for so long, and how it's so agonizingly _simple_ in the end. It's nothing he'll ever be able to understand in relation to his own experiences, of course, but he can't believe he's never so much as _considered_ it before. There _is_ still something about the reveal that doesn't make sense to him, though, doesn't quite sit right... “You're risking life and limb, poking at your superiors the way you do,” Freeza warns him, only to be stunned again when Vegeta shakes his head.

“ _You_ might not be bound to rules and consequences, but _they_ are,” the prince says, jaw tightening with restrained fury when he adds, “And _they_ don't own me.”

So he noticed. Freeza is suddenly giddy with the state of affairs, how Vegeta _knows_ who he belongs to, by all manner of legality, and how – even as it enrages him – he takes full and unswerving advantage of that fact. Freeza does _so_ hate for his things to be broken, after all... “So this _war_ of yours...I expect it ends with the slaughter of your tormentors, once you're strong enough?” he guesses mildly, like such a goal means nothing, and to him, it really does, even when Vegeta solemnly confirms it. For all the loyalty and admiration his officers have shown for him, Freeza couldn't care _less_ if any of them live or die.

Only now, a small part of him is rooting for the very person who wants to kill them.

How _fun_ this is!

Smiling, and sipping at his wine, Freeza considers the unfolding drama, the corners of his eyes crinkling in delight when he finds a glaring flaw in Vegeta's plan, a snag that could unravel everything the boy has worked so hard for. “And what if you reach your limit?” he asks slyly, getting Vegeta to stiffen at the idea. “Say your power remains as it is today, the very day you died by my hand. What would you do then?”

Vegeta's calm dissolves in an instant, rage flashing bright in his eyes. “I'd gut them in their fucking _sleep_ , that's what!” he snarls, fists slamming down on the armrests of his chair, and with only just enough restraint to not break them.

“O- _ho_!” Freeza laughs, hands clapping together to stay poised before him. “That is _quite_ the claim, my dear boy! And so _wonderfully_ underhanded, too!”

As Vegeta stares back, rigid and bristling and angry enough to where more complex matters will surely slip him by, Freeza laces his fingers together and leans forward to point out, “You could even do it this very night, and I would do _nothing_ to stop or punish you.”

For a long moment, the child sits in his simmering ire, before it cools without warning, seeping from Vegeta to leave him slumped and frowning and finally breaking eye contact. “I don't want to resort to that,” he admits, sullenly quiet. “There's no honor in it.”

Well, _there's_ another surprise; Freeza has never thought to consider that Vegeta might _have_ such moral scruples. The very idea annoys him, in a way little else has, because no one has ever risen enough into his notice for him to care before. “Honor is weakness,” Freeza declares sharply. “I don't want to hear of such sickening virtues.”

“Honor in defeat,” Vegeta says then, and the unfamiliar concept has his lord hesitating.

“...What?”

“A strong fighter deserves to die on the battlefield,” Vegeta explains, “out of respect for the power they've earned. That's all I meant. Whether or not they actually face their death with honor isn't my concern.”

Freeza hums curiously, somewhat appeased, but still finding the ideal to be a dreadful waste of effort. The prince could so easily pull himself out of misery, if he set aside such petty concerns and did what was necessary. He says as much, and though Vegeta agrees, it doesn't sway him in the least.

“Killing someone, any other way than in a fight...it doesn't make a person stronger,” he mutters, scowling at nothing in particular, arms crossing over his chest in a more defensive posture than the one Freeza is familiar with. “It's just weak, and cowardly, and it's not how I want to take down an opponent.” When the tyrant huffs a little, unimpressed, Vegeta glances back up at him. “Even if it means I have to suffer for it, it doesn't matter. The more I endure, the better equipped I am for battle.”

Ah...so it _does_ make sense, in its own odd little way. He'd have thought the novelty of surprise would have faded by now, and yet Freeza revels in it still, a smile spreading bit by bit until he's chuckling lightly. “Is there _anything_ other than strength that drives you?” he wonders, resting his chin atop his hands as he takes in Vegeta's subtle reaction. For all that the boy is a snarling hellion about the station, in here, his expressions are more reserved, careful and calculated, proving that much of his behavior has some greater purpose to it. Understanding that as Freeza does now, the answer to his question is just as he expects.

“No.”

And it really is that simple.

Having the mystery solved should have washed away any and all interest in the Saiyan sitting across from him, and yet, somehow, it only makes Vegeta all the more fascinating. The young prince struggles, knowingly and willingly, on the off chance he might one day become strong enough to put down those who have so greatly oppressed and wronged him. “Will you make _them_ suffer?” Freeza wants to know, a grin spreading at the haunted look that flickers over the boy's face.

“I haven't decided yet,” Vegeta replies coldly. “I'll know when it happens.”

“It's always good to leave your options open,” Freeza tells him, very much approving. It's interesting to know that, unlike all the other worthless scum on his station, Vegeta doesn't focus on causing pain, but on achieving his end goal, instead. Freeza doesn't envy his officers one bit; they've made one _hell_ of an obsessive enemy, one who cares nothing for the vast array of obstacles in his path.

Because Vegeta is prepared to break them all down, one at a time, with single-minded determination and sheer force of will.

It's funny, really, how Freeza suddenly wants to watch it happen.

It's also funny how, for the first time since he came in, Vegeta flinches, and in surprise at the door hissing open rather than anything Freeza has done. It shows just how much of his attention he's placed on his lord, and there's something almost _endearing_ in that.

Zarbon steps into the room, uninvited but bearing a meal tray that has Freeza forgiving it – always on time, this one. His officer is less than subtle in how eagerly he's been waiting to learn Vegeta's fate, and Freeza relishes the shocked widening of his eyes at how alive and unharmed the young prince is.

_'Tough luck, Zarbon. He has **my** favor now – and he'll **keep** it as long as he stays **fun**.'_

Freeza's given a confused look as the tray is set before him, his wine goblet refilled, but he ignores it all with a knowing little smile. He keeps his eyes on Vegeta instead, who looks back with mild confusion until Zarbon is addressed, after which a glimmer of vindication steals over the child's features. “Zarbon, would you care to tell me why the mission briefing made no mention of the full moons?” Freeza asks sweetly, careful to keep from grinning outright, lest it be revealed that he's making sport of his officer. Zarbon chokes at once, looking like he's already been struck, and to Vegeta's clear satisfaction, Freeza drives the nail home. “I could have _sworn_ I asked you to confirm the data before sending Vegeta off.”

The boy _laughs_ , low and deep in his throat, and it's such a _lovely_ sound to balance out Zarbon's horrified spluttering. It occurs to Freeza that he's never _heard_ Vegeta laugh before, not in any way that's not harsh or loudly cruel, and he commits the rare moment to memory as his officer attempts to save face. He's not even listening, Zarbon's words unnecessary – Freeza hadn't asked him to do _anything_ , after all – and only Vegeta seems to realize it, shaking with quiet laughter at the one-sided exchange. He doesn't even care when the other prince snaps at him to shut his mouth.

“That will _do_ , Zarbon,” Freeza says breezily, and his officer shuts his own mouth in an instant, openly terrified. “I'll deal with you later. I still have matters to discuss with Vegeta, so if you would kindly _leave_...?”

Zarbon obeys immediately, almost forgetting to bow in his haste to escape, and once he's gone, Vegeta grins at his lord. “Not very bright, is he?” he asks, which is hilarious in that Zarbon often asks the very same thing about _him_. Freeza chuckles at the delicious irony of it, and doesn't bother correcting him.

At least where Freeza is concerned, in the only way that matters, Vegeta is _far_ brighter than Zarbon – by a _longshot_.

Any remaining humor in the prince evaporates the moment Freeza lifts the lid from his meal, sending a mouthwatering aroma into the air. After that, Vegeta sets his jaw, arms crossed, and staunchly avoids looking anywhere _near_ what must be a veritable banquet to him. Freeza sets the lid aside, eyes narrowing at the telltale rumble he hears from the other side of his workstation, and a ponderous smile begins to form on his face.

With one finger, and without a word, he slides the tray across the desk.

Vegeta starts at having high-grade meat and tender sprouts placed before him, and looks up from it to Freeza without comprehension. He doesn't even _dare_ to think he's being given anything, but he also doesn't dare to reject what might be a generous gift from his lord, and that is an absolute _joy_ to behold.

Smiling patiently, Freeza makes the decision easy for him. “The sound of hunger does _very_ much grate at one's hearing,” he says, leaning back into his chair, and waiting to see what Vegeta will do now that he's been granted permission. It's fascinating, in a wretched sort of way, seeing the wary hesitation of a half-starved Saiyan, reaching forward slowly like he expects to be slapped away, and Freeza watches with mounting pleasure at the subtle conflict between hunger and anxiety. He doesn't stop the boy, though, and is distinctly relieved that when Vegeta tentatively begins to eat, he does so neatly, with surprising grace and good manners.

The shudder that wracks Vegeta's frame at his first taste of luxury, Freeza thinks, is almost as satisfying as luxury itself.

What a beautiful _disaster_ he's taken into his care.

That thought gives him pause, has him reassessing the situation before he finds himself in too deep. Favor is one thing, useful for inspiring competition in the ranks, but _care_...? Tucking a hand under his chin, Freeza observes the little prince who's garnered his attention, sees how Vegeta remains very much aware of the dictator's presence even as he sates the worst of his hunger. He's an edgy, defensive thing, revolting in his many weaknesses, not worthy of even a _moment_ of his lord's time...

Ah, and yet, it seems Freeza is drawn to such things, after all.

Even as he looks down on the scurrying insects in his self-made hive, sneering at their troubles, he _adores_ watching over it all, like a mesmerized child with their nose pressed to a glass terrarium. And now, the smallest and filthiest of all the mindless critters has stopped and seen through the glass, looked upon the captivated stare and the wider truth beyond it, and understood it all like no other.

Perhaps, Freeza muses, beneath the insect's filthy and pitiful exterior, something fantastic is waiting to emerge. Perhaps, with a little help, that can even happen sooner, and spice things up in this miserably dull hive he keeps. And with _that_ as a possibility, it's no wonder Freeza decides what he does, to grant this single marvel a bit of his support.

Unlucky as he is, Vegeta deserves at least _that_ much of a fighting chance.

Mind made up, Freeza gets to his feet, stalking slowly around his workstation to better assess his newest entertainment – and potential project. Vegeta tenses when his lord walks behind him, but makes no move to either fight or flee, and though his movements turn careful and slow, as if to evade the notice of a circling predator, he continues to eat. Very smart, Freeza silently praises; the last thing he wants is a meek toy he can't play with.

Up close, the poor, beaten-down state of the boy is apparent. Vegeta is much thinner than he should be, his hipbones pronounced beneath the blue of his bodysuit, and his trim waist wrapped not once, but _twice_ by his tail. What mass he does have, however, is tightly corded with muscle, lean and compact. The lack of nutrition has made Vegeta small, far smaller than average, in a way that makes him look almost adorable – _almost_ , if it weren't for his less than charming attitude. His face still has traces of immaturity, but bears sharp, regal angles befitting a prince, and deep dark eyes, almond-shaped and lined with strife. Objectively speaking, his appearance isn't offensive at all. And the signature flame of his hair...

Struck by a sudden inquisitive urge and sobering realization both, Freeza looks down at his hand, which has only ever dealt suffering and death before, and then thoughtfully back up at Vegeta. He steps in closer, reaching out, and chuckles at how the boy stiffens at the painless touch to his hair, sitting frozen in place with a bite of food halfway to his mouth. There's no argument as Freeza threads his fingers through the strands, surprisingly soft and held up purely for how thick Saiyan hair is, but Vegeta remains perfectly still as he's petted, unsure if there's a looming threat or not.

“Don't move,” Freeza tells him anyway, chuckling again as he abandons the heavy mane to take up a slim wrist instead. Vegeta lets him, watching cautiously out of the corner of his eye as his arm is raised, the tip of one gloved finger pinched lightly. Freeza tugs off the weathered white glove with one easy motion, tossing it to lie crumpled in Vegeta's lap, and studies the Saiyan's bared hand. The knuckles are red and cracked from constant battle, the fingertips calloused, and the finely-haired back scarred in places, but the unblemished palm is soft and smooth when he runs his thumb over it. When he glances to the watchful prince, Freeza finds the caution gone from his eyes, Vegeta already tucking his bite of food into his mouth as he allows the touch, expression mild.

Anyone else might have thought to worry, to fear that the tyrant had more questionable motives behind the examination. Not Vegeta, though. Somehow, he seems to recognize that the interest he's being shown is nothing more than idle curiosity, as innocent as anything _can_ be where Freeza is concerned.

Touching lightly across the soft palm again, noting how the persistent heat beneath the skin wards away the chill of his fingers, Freeza takes a moment to consider the feeling of simple, meaningless contact. It's a strange sort of thing, given all he's ever used his own hands for is violence; he could _break_ what he holds, right now, if he really wanted to. “So _delicate_...” he breathes quietly.

“To you,” Vegeta concedes.

“ _Everything_ is delicate to me,” Freeza agrees, and he lets go, waiting until Vegeta has calmly replaced his glove and resumed eating before reaching out again. This time, he holds his hand out at waist level, close to Vegeta's hip, and when a confused squint is sent his way, Freeza beckons expectantly with his fingers and _smirks_.

Vegeta goes still again with realization, utensil lowering onto the now nearly empty tray, and glances down at the awaiting hand. Then, swallowing uneasily, he lets his tail unfurl from around his waist, and reluctantly lays it into Freeza's open palm.

The furry appendage is trembling, and as rigid as the rest of the Saiyan's body, though whether it's because Vegeta expects pain or impropriety, Freeza isn't sure. He knows better than to stroke downwards and towards the spine, however, as it would have the boy's still-maturing body reacting in ways that _neither_ of them want. Carefully, he smooths his hand upward to the tip instead, following how the fur is laid and nodding at the texture. It's glossy, and much more coarse than Vegeta's hair, fittingly like the pelt of an animal. Once the twitching tip is held in his grasp, Freeza gives in to temptation and squeezes; not hard, but enough to paralyze an untrained Saiyan.

Vegeta doesn't even _blink_.

“Oh? That doesn't hurt?” Freeza asks, caught somewhere between approval and disappointment.

Shaking his head, Vegeta replies, “It hasn't – not since Burter stepped on it.” There are few on board the station who don't remember that particular scuffle in the commissary, and the resounding crunch that finished it. The prince's anguished scream, a sound never before heard until that moment, had spoken of how excruciating the attack had been. When Freeza notes how well it healed, with not a kink to be seen, Vegeta's response sounds distinctly proud. “I set the bones myself.”

Of _course_ he did. And since Burter stepping on it had been excruciating, then judging by how proud Vegeta is about it, setting the bones back in place could have only been worse. “From you, I'd expect nothing less,” Freeza tells him, and means every word of it. He releases Vegeta's tail to cup the boy's chin in a hand next, tilting his face this way and that, and liking how it has annoyance flickering in the dark eyes. He already knows Vegeta hates to be manhandled. “Something has just occurred to me, thinking on what you've said,” he says, and when the only response is an expectant raise of a brow, Freeza squeezes his fingers a little rougher than necessary, smiling when Vegeta doesn't react. “If your aim is to rid yourself of those who have caused your suffering...where does that leave _me_?” he asks.

“Same place as all the rest,” Vegeta says flatly, and that very nearly sparks a dangerous anger, Freeza's eyes narrowing until the next words register. “ _Everyone's_ made it onto my shit-list in some way or another. Even Raditz and Nappa. So it's not like it's anything significant,” Vegeta scoffs, eyes rolling as he pulls back from his lord's grasp.

“How very charming,” Freeza retorts, in a tone that makes clear he thinks quite the opposite. Even so, the threat of his temper recedes, favoring amused wonder at how Vegeta apparently doesn't know how to _lie_. Or, if he does, he's fantastically _awful_ at knowing when he ought to. “Perhaps it's about time you put some work into your social skills, Vegeta. I think they _might_ be a little lacking.”

“Says the _mimic_ ,” Vegeta shoots back, and Freeza finds himself laughing again, light and genuine. He's not surprised this time by how right the prince is, only by the fact that the detail was noticed in the first place. It _is_ true, after all, that Freeza – as a pure apex predator – is not by _any_ means a sociable creature, so the polite airs he puts on are little more than imitation, the bits and pieces picked up over his many long years of observing others.

If he wants to surround himself with the very vermin he looks down on, Freeza has no other alternative than to behave more or less as they do, lest he disturb and scatter them.

Laughter easing, he leans down to playfully flick the center of Vegeta's forehead, not even hard enough to sting. “I think I'll keep you, after all,” Freeza decides smugly. “Welcome back to life.” When that gets a chuckle from Vegeta, low and soft and far too fleeting, Freeza only becomes all the more sure of his claim. Until the boy loses appeal, or hints at becoming a threat, Freeza _will_ keep him.

For as long as he feasibly can.

Vegeta is dismissed not long after that, though before he steps from the office with a visibly disgruntled Zarbon ushering him out, the advantage of being on Freeza's radar is laid out plainly for him to see. With the door open, Dodoria just outside and Vegeta's guards within earshot in the hall, Zarbon is instructed to rectify the commissary's lacking nutritional standards for Saiyans. And the only reason given?

Freeza doesn't feel like listening to their hungry stomachs whenever they report in.

It's _annoying_.

As much as a boon as the tyrant's support is, though, it's a rare and precious commodity that others desperately crave, and so Vegeta learns quickly that it comes with a price. A few days after the conversation in the office, he's left a bleeding mess in some forgotten corner, too many bones broken for him to count even if he could focus past the pain. He's barely cognizant when his men find him hours later. They know it was Zarbon, the scent unmistakable, but there's nothing they can do about it.

They can't even carry Vegeta without breaking him further.

It's a red wash of psychic energy that saves him, lifting his limp body from the floor without the danger of jostling him, and when he's gently deposited into a medical tank, Vegeta's eyes crack open. “F...Freeza...?” he grits out, already knowing.

“Ah, so you're awake. Tenacious as always.” Freeza waves away both the doctors and the other two Saiyans, fitting the respirator over the boy's nose and mouth with a smile. “I'd keep on my toes if I were you, Vegeta. It seems my favor for you has been chafing at my officers' egos,” Freeza tells him pleasantly, and feels approval welling at how the battered prince still manages to meet his gaze, teeth bared in a grin that must be agonizing.

“ _Good_ ,” Vegeta rasps, and when he returns fully healed in time for a purging assignment a week later, it's with his power level swelling to nearly _double_ what it was. It's not enough to seek revenge, of course, but it still has Zarbon regretting the assault, not expecting how much _faster_ the boy is when they next come to blows in the training hall.

Freeza is careful to be there for it, in _person_ , and when Vegeta lands a sucker punch right in his commander's eye to leave it blackened and swollen, it's to his lord's silent elation. It doesn't even matter that the young prince is summarily overwhelmed, slammed into the floor multiple times and kicked for good measure. Because Freeza knows _better_ now, knows that no humiliation or beating is too much for his little marvel, and knows too that Vegeta will get up afterward like it all went precisely the way he wanted it to.

Much to Zarbon's frustration, the officers are all warned to be careful with Vegeta from then on. Though it's true that Freeza enjoys the new drama, and supports it himself, it still wouldn't do to have the Saiyan getting too strong too quickly. Some vague fluttering unease at the back of his mind whispers that such a thing could prove dangerous someday, to every last putrid insect around him, and possibly even to himself.

Over the following years, that subtle danger is dislodged from his thoughts in favor of another more pressing matter, one that alarms Freeza even as he lets it happen. Though he never again summons Vegeta to him alone, the way he had for their first real conversation, every time the unruly prince kneels before him is a startling burst of color in an otherwise dull reality. How could it _not_ be, with how his favorite plaything _knows_ him?

Freeza delights in how baffled his officers are when Vegeta starts passing them by, reporting directly to his lord in what seems a wild change from the norm. And while the Saiyan still keeps what he says short and simple, he also drops in fun little details at random throughout the dry fact, sharing the delicious conflict Freeza is missing out on, and so greatly enjoys. Freeza enjoys it even more when Zarbon and Dodoria try to do the same thing, unaware that he's not interested in hearing it from _them_.

It's like a shared joke, one that only he and Vegeta can understand.

The glimmer in the prince's eye whenever they face each other, amused and knowing, never becomes tiresome or anything other than fun, and so Freeza returns it in kind, often enough to where he can't deny to himself how greatly he supports Vegeta. It shows in his lack of anger when the brat messes up intentionally, just to see what he can get away with, smirking up at his lord with every sloppily-handled mission and broken piece of tech, minor things that inconvenience literally everyone but Freeza. Some part of the tyrant _laughs_ inside, hearing his minions bemoan how much time it's wasting, and the resources being spent, as if it matters even a _bit_ in the end.

Freeza hates to waste time and resources, this much is true – but only on insects he _doesn't care about_.

By the time Vegeta is well into maturity, his features striking and the once-dangerous thinness of his frame filled out in health, he's cost the planet trade so much time and money that it's positively criminal. Yet still, the mere thought of being around the prince has Freeza looking _forward_ to it, feeling something _fond_ blossoming in the hollow shell of his heart, and whenever Vegeta gets in over his head and hurt, Freeza has to _resist_ checking in on him.

He _frets_ over a mere weakling, a _Saiyan_ , as if the life of one beneath him is _worth_ his anxiety.

And while favor isn't worth checking in on, care very much apparently is, for his clan starts dropping by – uninvited as usual – to see if the whispered rumors have any clout to them.

It's the visit from his father that's the worst, walking into his private quarters to find Kold's hulking form in one darkened corner, getting Freeza to step back in alarm like he's still a mere child. There had been no warning whatsoever, the beast slipping through the halls like a shadow, so he's not fully prepared for the confrontation.

“I hear you have a...new _pet_ ,” Kold begins, and Freeza cringes without meaning to. Before he can even get past the first word of explanation, his father interrupts, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, _he_? You pay enough attention to know its gender?”

“They're called social niceties, Papa,” Freeza replies pleasantly, hands folding behind him to clench into uncomfortable fists. “Perhaps you've heard of them.”

Kold sneers in disdain. “Unnecessary,” is all he says of the concept, before cutting straight to the heart of the matter. “I want you to kill it.”

 _Gods_ , but he hates this old-fashioned fool. Freeza smiles like he doesn't, though, and replies with as much patience as he can, “That's not for you to decide. I run my empire how _I_ want to, and if that means granting one little monkey the privilege of living, then that's how it will _be_.”

For one drawn out and nerve-wracking moment, Kold looks him over slowly with empty red eyes, debating something, before he lets out a long sigh of weary disgust. “The _rebellious_ stage,” he scoffs, and shoulders past his son without another word. Freeza lets him go, and hears nothing from security about an intruder on board, despite how an hour later has him watching on the camera feeds as an airlock opens and closes, a dark blur speeding out of it and into deep space.

He has every last security guard shot and replaced after that.

It's no surprise that a week later heralds another visit, this time from Cooler. Bossy as always, but at least civilized enough to provide some forewarning, his elder brother insists on joining him for a tour of a newly acquired planet, and says they need to talk. The dust from the recent conquest is still settling when they arrive, and Freeza curses to himself when his landing party crosses paths with the assigned purging crew. Vegeta approaches with his guards close behind, armor cracked and suit torn, and he looks half-dead on his feet. Still, he lifts a hand in tired salute to Freeza, and pauses to glance between the two tyrants. His brows furrow when he briefly assesses Cooler, and he waves his men ahead loosely, voice low and worn when he asks Freeza, out of nowhere, “Something wrong?”

“Don't worry about it, Vegeta,” Freeza replies, and tilts his head towards the awaiting attack balls. “Head back and get some rest.”

Vegeta nods wearily, rubbing flecks of dried blood from his chin with the back of a hand, and doesn't stop to think about it when he leans closer. “Your brother?” he asks quietly, enough to where only the two of them can hear, and Freeza hums noncommittally, his flat look enough of an answer. “Ah. Thought so. ...Looks like kind of a prick.”

Freeza laughs in spite of himself and shoos Vegeta away, watching with his mood lightened as the prince stumbles off to his pod, just about ready to drop from exhaustion. Nowadays, that sort of exchange between them is nothing new, and it must show, because Cooler addresses it the instant Vegeta is out of earshot. “You're getting attached,” he notes in disapproval, and Freeza scoffs at the claim.

“Even if I _was_ , whose fault, exactly, would _that_ be?” he asks, challenging his brother to deny an instance of foolish meddling into his personal affairs, nearly a full year prior. If it hadn't taken place to begin with, he and Vegeta would hardly bother to talk to each other at all, regardless of the shared understanding between them.

There's no denial to speak of, Cooler well aware of his role in their changing dynamic, and his eyes narrow somewhat as he considers the response. Then, without any warning, he asks, “Have you had your way with him yet?”

The mere question is revolting on principle, much as the fact that it's family asking, but out of sheer vengeful spite, Freeza shoots back, “And what if I _have_? Would that _bother_ you, dear brother?”

“I don't care what you do, but _Father_ won't like it,” Cooler reminds him, despite surely knowing that he hasn't actually done anything.

Only now, suddenly, Freeza finds that he _wants_ to. The thought of his father's face, stricken with disgusted rage, thrills him terribly, giving his favored plaything a seductive edge, and revulsion dissolves in one mind-bending instant.

He takes Vegeta to his bed scarcely a week later. It's not the first time Freeza has brought such a lowly creature into his private suite, but it _is_ the first time one goes along willingly, Vegeta accepting his veiled command like it's a mere invitation. It stuns him enough to where it becomes just that, Freeza abruptly wondering if the prince actually wants what's being proposed, and strangely preferring not to force the attention on him. But even when he's told there's no obligation, Vegeta just nods and says that he knows.

Any skepticism Freeza has crumbles to dust once he gets Vegeta under him, the Saiyan offering only the merest token resistance before melting into the sheets with a throaty groan, head thrown back in bliss as Freeza dominates him utterly. He's so open, and responsive, clearly relishing every moment of his submission, and it throws on a whole new baffling layer to his behavior that begs to be examined. At all other times, Vegeta can't so much as _tolerate_ the idea of being bested, in _any_ way, and yet as he's held down and roughly handled, the prince wraps his legs around Freeza's waist of his own accord, screaming outright as milky seed spills across his stomach.

The answer, as it turns out, is more of a cultural oddity than anything else. When he's asked why he consented, Vegeta stares like the question doesn't make sense. “Why wouldn't I?” he asks in return.

“You've made no secret of your contempt for me,” Freeza reminds him, lips pulled up in a wry smirk.

“Oh,” is all Vegeta says at first, followed by a shrug. “That's fine, though. Saiyans could never really afford to be picky.” It's a strange answer, one that has Freeza squinting at how much it doesn't explain, so Vegeta lays back against the pillows and thinks about it for a minute. “My race is...violent, obviously. We like to fight, especially each other, so...there was a lot of that to go around,” he says, before adding helpfully, “Contempt, I mean. Most of us don't- _...Didn't_ get along.”

He looks away at having to correct himself, one of the rare signs that the loss of his home and people bothers him more than he lets on, and Freeza has to forcibly school his features, lest he reveal everything with a single smile. “So affection, and attraction...?” he prompts instead, settling himself next to Vegeta to lean back as well.

Vegeta snorts at the idea. “Doesn't matter,” he replies, and glances over at Freeza briefly, before sharing, “My mother and father hated each other. Up until I was...promised to you...they could hardly stay in the same room without arguing.”

“How _fun_ that must have been,” Freeza chuckles, pleased when Vegeta shrugs again and nods.

“Usually...the stronger the rivalry, the stronger the child,” he explains, with visible pride at the clear meaning; that he was born from the strongest rivalry of all. “If I hadn't been drafted, my younger brother probably would have been born stronger, enough to surpass me one day.”

The subtle indication of the Saiyan king's despair, wrenching enough to choke out the fire of spiteful passion for his queen, has Freeza brimming with satisfaction. “Does affection _weaken_ your kind, then?” he wonders.

“Raditz's parents were in love,” Vegeta replies, like it answers everything, and his grin is mean when he adds, “His baby brother was born with a power level of two.”

“ _Two_? For a _Saiyan_?!” Freeza exclaims, aghast, and Vegeta's low chuckle says enough to confirm it for him. “Well, I _do_ hope they put it out of its misery.” He shakes his head, unable to even comprehend such a lack in power, and mutters in disgusted awe, “A power level of _two_. _Ridiculous_.” Once his revulsion fades, and he decides that the backwards courtship of a near-dead race isn't really anything that captures his interest, Freeza changes the topic, to a matter he finds much more pressing.

“What of submission?” he inquires, and Vegeta looks over at him, clueless again in a way that's honestly confounding. When the prince echoes the word like he's not sure why it's been mentioned, Freeza clarifies, “You submitted to me.”

“I already told you, I'm not suicidal,” Vegeta grumbles, rolling his eyes and sprawling further against the cushions.

“But you _liked_ it,” Freeza points out, surprised when Vegeta doesn't react, not a hint of shame on his features – or much of anything else, really. It has uncertainty creeping in, and a need to know for sure. “...You _did_ , didn't you?”

That gets him a look halfway between confusion and skepticism. “Could you not _tell_?” Vegeta asks in disbelief, a touch of pink finally tinging his cheeks. When Freeza only frowns and looks away, mildly flustered, the prince sighs and obligingly considers the topic, mulling on it throughout the stretch of silence before it occurs to him what his lord isn't understanding. “Sex has nothing to do with dominance,” Vegeta tells him finally. “It's just for fun.”

“That makes no sense,” Freeza huffs. “I pinned you down. I _penetrated_ you.”

“Yeah,” Vegeta agrees with a little half-grin, not minding that fact at _all_. “And I wanted you to, so I didn't fight it,” he goes on to explain. “As long as there's consent, there's control – shared between both. So dominance isn't possible.” Before Freeza can insist again how little sense any of it makes, Vegeta states very clearly, “Saiyans like it rough. It doesn't matter _which_ way it goes, as long as that's how it _is_. Giving, or taking...it's good either way.”

Thinking that over, Freeza narrows his eyes at the wall opposite his bed before turning a wary gaze onto Vegeta. “I'm not interested in taking that sort of thing from you,” he states plainly. “Either I'm on top, or it's not happening.”

“I know,” Vegeta replies, shrugging again. “That's fine. Like I said, it's good either way.”

And to him, that's apparently the end of it. It still doesn't make much sense to Freeza, but his prince likes it rough, and likes to take what's given, so that's acceptable enough. With that decided, he considers the matter settled and explained, dismissing it from his mind so he can make use of what he's learned, and he goes on to indulge in Vegeta all over again. The enthusiasm he's met with only underscores what he's already been told, making his command over the prince's body all the sweeter, in a way intimacy hasn't ever really been before now. He is _very_ much attached, Freeza realizes with dismay, a fact impossible to deny when he stays even after it's finished. He lays against Vegeta, pleasantly warmed, and doesn't want to leave.

And he wonders what it would be like, to kill someone he's actually fond of.

Scant hours later, Vegeta wakes up with hands at his throat, cutting off his air, and the unfamiliar look of naked terror that passes over him is all that keeps him alive. Freeza hesitates, thinking that, actually, Vegeta's done nothing to _deserve_ death, and relaxes his grip. He even passes it off as nothing but a joke; an unfunny one, but a joke nonetheless. Why, after all, would he kill off his greatest source of entertainment? Vegeta isn't amused, not by a longshot, and though he doesn't really buy it, he doesn't bring it up again, either. Not quite forgiven, but not yet rejected, Freeza is surprised by how it relieves him, and decides that not-quite-forgiveness is good enough.

He also decides that he'll kill Vegeta the moment he stops being fun.

That moment will be quite a while from now, he expects, for his pet goes along with his whims even after the brush with death, rolling in the sheets with him like nothing happened. Much as the prior night, Vegeta caves to intimacy like it's an old friend, and the strangeness of it sparks Freeza's interest, much as the Saiyan's behavior often does. He asks about it, when they're getting dressed later, and the brief conversation that follows has a rare sort of agitation welling up in him.

Turns out Vegeta's been falling into bed with pretty much _everyone_ he hates. Even Zarbon has had a taste of the prince, and something about that doesn't sit right with Freeza. “No more of that,” he decides. “I have no intentions of _sharing_.”

Vegeta stares at him long and hard from the edge of the bed, before saying slowly, “All right...” Then, when his lord thinks the conversation is over, he asks, “Are you going to do the same?”

The idea is ludicrous, and Freeza laughs aloud. “Just who do you think you're talking to? I do as I please, Vegeta,” he chuckles in return, only to be struck unaware and left on edge by the response.

“Then so do I.”

“You'll do as you're told, _monkey_ ,” Freeza snarls, “or have you forgotten that I _own_ you?”

Vegeta's not impressed, and he proves it by getting up and _walking out_. Freeza's so stunned by the sheer audacity of it that he doesn't even think to stop it, and he spends the next week fuming when Vegeta doesn't so much as _look_ at him. When another infuriating week of being spurned ends with him overhearing some worthless maggot gloating to his squad, telling them how he'd had the Saiyan prince riding him like _he_ was the strong one, Freeza sees red, something in him _howling_ with possessive rage.

There's sodden entrails clenched in his fist before he can even realize he's moving, and Freeza guts every last one of the hapless squad, dragging their half-dead bodies to the airlock and kicking them out of it. _'I'll_ _ **kill**_ _him,'_ he thinks viciously, throwing out the last of the trash. _'If I can't have him, he's_ _ **dead by my hand**_ _.'_ Even so, he's tempted to simply chain Vegeta up to his bed and be done with it, the way his father's toys were always kept. He's about to do just that when he's denied _again_ , screaming his fury when he learns that Vegeta has jumped station to tag along with the Ginyu Force.

Freeza seethes over that for a whole month and a half, unable to vent it, because _everyone_ on his station is privy to what happens during that time, and he can't very well wipe out his entire empire. He _hates_ it, gritting his teeth every time it's brought up, his useless minions and officers having a grand time of laughing over Vegeta's indiscretions, like he's just another stupid monkey. But Freeza knows better than that.

Vegeta knows _exactly_ what he's doing.

The message gets through to the prince's target audience loud and clear, heard on every scouter that isn't turned off for propriety's sake, when Recoome's the one who tumbles him. Vegeta _would_ go for the showiest asshole possible, it being no secret that the big oaf likes for people to _know_ what he's capable of, so of _course_ the line of communication is left on and open.

Freeza listens with mounting wrath as Vegeta eggs the bastard on, hits the ground hard with a laugh, and _screams_ as he's relentlessly pounded by something that's _almost_ too big for him. Freeza _knows_ that scream, reserved for pure sensation, and there is _nothing_ anguished about it this time.

The instant Vegeta returns to the station, Freeza demands his presence, ordering Zarbon to drag the ungrateful brat if he has to. He doesn't even notice how no one asks what Vegeta's done this time, everyone who hears striving not to smirk at what's obviously going on. “Are you certain, my lord?” Zarbon asks, and sidesteps the wine glass that's hurled at him, already seeing it coming. “Right now?” he presses on, and Freeza just about snaps completely.

“On his knees, in front of me, _now_!” he shrieks, missing how Dodoria has to choke down a snort of laughter. Nothing else matters, rage coursing through him up to the moment his focus can zero in on the source of his troubles; when Vegeta is shoved down onto the floor in front of his lord, on his knees as ordered. The other two Saiyans raise an awful fuss, tussling ineffectually with Zarbon and Dodoria until they're shoved hard against a wall, but Freeza sees none of it. He already has a hand up by then, ki surging, and looks forward to satisfying the urge to kill what he cares for, just to know what it's like.

But then Vegeta lifts his head, looks up at Freeza with a smirk like no other, and says fearlessly, “Guess you missed me, huh.”

It lays out his whole purpose behind the ordeal with startling, frustrating clarity.

His aim could never have been purely to antagonize Freeza. Such a dangerous game, one sure to end in death, doesn't make sense for Vegeta, who clings so stubbornly to life. No, his meaning is right there in his words alone, pushing Freeza to acknowledge what he's been missing out on, wrought of his own refusal to change his habits the way he'd demanded the prince to. It grates at him worse because Vegeta is _right_. The last few conquests he'd taken to bed, each one a scared slip of a thing with a passing resemblance to his favorite toy, had been so unsatisfying that he'd butchered each one without even sating himself.

Having absolute control is something he needs, _craves_ , the submission of all others a soothing balm on his ego. But Freeza has never before enjoyed it quite as much as he did that night, when the one giving him that control had submitted to it so willingly, and liked it enough to want _more_.

Most telling of all, though, that Vegeta has more than the simple goal of proving a point, is the storm of emotion that roils through Freeza. He's shaking with it for the first time, with rage and anticipation and that _accursed_ fondness, bated breath burning in his lungs and the frantic pounding of his heart so very loud in his senses. Vegeta knows how easily bored he is, how routine sets in to leave everything feeling bland and lifeless, but right now, at this very moment...

He's never felt so frightfully _alive_.

Freeza meets Vegeta's challenging grin with a knowing smirk of his own, adjusts his aim, and fires – once, twice, three times.

Deafening silence fills the room, Nappa and Raditz standing in utter shock that they're still alive, steaming holes in the wall at either side of their heads. Vegeta notes each missed shot, and laughs low in his throat. “Looks like you're both dead,” he tells them, in a joke incomprehensible to all but Freeza, who stands trembling in suppressed wonder with his hand still outstretched.

“You cheeky little _shit_ ,” he breathes with a smile, ignoring how his officers recoil in horror at the coarse language, so rare from his mouth. Freeza doesn't care, and starts to laugh, soon leaning over his desk with the force of it, his hands pressed to the metal. “How _wonderful_ , Vegeta!” he exclaims once he can speak, leaving his officers gaping like nothing makes sense anymore. “You've done a fantastic job on your mission, I _must_ say. I'm _quite_ pleased with the results.”

Vegeta nods, smirking like he'd expected nothing less. “So, are we dismissed?” he asks, and with another delighted laugh, Freeza waves him and his men out.

“You are, indeed. Oh, and take the rest of the day off,” Freeza decides, enjoying the compounded awe and disbelief on Zarbon's face, and rubbing it in when he adds sweetly, “For all your hard work, you deserve it.”

And Vegeta needs it, too, resting up while everyone else finishes work for the day, because once Freeza leaves his office, he heads straight for the Saiyans' dorm and kicks the door in. Raditz and Nappa jump up into defensive crouches, only to turn red and obey when he jabs a finger at the exit. “Get the _fuck_ out,” he spits at them when they don't move fast enough, and ignores their hastily beaten retreat as he stalks over to Vegeta, who’s calmly lounging on the couch like he owns the whole station. There’s another faint twist of a smirk on his face, one that doesn’t fade when Freeza hauls him up by the arm. Indeed, Vegeta doesn't offer even the _slightest_ resistance to being dragged into the privacy of his bedroom.

He winds up on his knees in front of Freeza, after all, just as ordered, and screams himself raw within the first two minutes of it. It had taken Recoome far longer, and that's all Freeza needs to know.

This is, without doubt or compare, the most fun he's ever had in his _life_.

“You, my dear, are an absolute _treasure_ ,” he whispers into Vegeta's ear, and smiles at how all it gets in reply is a fleeting moan. Later on, after they've had their fill of each other, Freeza still kind of wants to know what it would be like to kill his prince, but again, and for now, he lets the urge slip him by. The past couple months have been a brutal exercise in his patience, true enough, but now that he looks back on it, with Vegeta curled against him in slumber, Freeza recalls only the most wondrous of memories.

His anger had turned the hive chaotic with activity, fearful insects scrambling about in confusion, and all of them trying desperately to appease him. Truly, a marvelous thing to behold. He likes to think of it as a gift that Vegeta's given him, and if he were capable of it, Freeza might have thought himself nearly in love. Instead, it's sworn aloud to the sleeping prince that his lord will always own him, no matter _what_ happens, and that if Vegeta ever strays, for any reason, Freeza will slowly and sweetly end his pathetic life.

The promise is very nearly broken over a year later, Vegeta's life put suddenly and alarmingly on the line, and by a threat Freeza should have taken into account from the beginning. If he hadn't always kept such a close watch on the prince, he'd have lost him, and it's made all the worse with how he _knows_ the intent behind it.

It puts into perspective just how ensnared he is by the Saiyan.

“This attachment will only weaken you,” his father insists, appearing from nowhere before the disaster unfolds. As always, Freeza isn't expecting it, jerking in alarm and whirling around to face the intruder, Kold looming at the back of his office. “It _has_ weakened you.”

With a grating sigh, Freeza crosses his arms; just a bit too tightly over his chest, betraying his discomfort. “You _do_ realize I have things to get done, don't you?” he asks flatly. “I'll entertain you _later_ , Papa.”

The hollow red stare pins him in place, though, making him uneasy with the knowledge of what's been lurking on his station undetected. The age-old beast before Freeza at this very moment cares _nothing_ for the state of any hive, for he is a stalking predator with a bottomless appetite for carnage, one who would happily wade through the torn bodies of every last minion aboard if not for the closely matched power of his son. “You'll entertain me now,” Kold finally says, like it's the simple but terrible fact it is.

“Get on with it, then,” Freeza sighs, tail weaving restlessly behind him. “State your piece so I can get back to my work.”

Eyes narrowing slowly, in an expression impossible to parse for such an ancient creature, Kold tells him, “You give too much, for what you get in return.” It's nothing Freeza doesn't already know, of course. He's well aware, and finds it privately hilarious, how he chides Vegeta with mere playful smacks to the hand for things he'd kill any other pest for. “Your pet is taking advantage of you. And you allow it.”

“Yes, of course,” Freeza replies mildly, relishing the fleeting glint of surprise on his father's face. “I _do_ allow it. And I can take _back_ that allowance at any time. Or have you not considered that?”

With his upper lip curling, Kold warns him, “You grow complacent. If this continues, you will give too much, and you will not know when to stop.” He pauses to let that sink in, glowering when Freeza only raises a brow. “That is when your pet will _turn on you_ , boy. It has no such attachment to _you_ – I have _seen this_ ,” Kold goes on, as though it's any sort of surprise.

Snorting, Freeza looks away, unimpressed at being told more of what he already knows, and missing the glaring danger in the words. “He's no threat to me,” he replies, hands clenching when his father _chuckles_ , an awful sound, and he turns back to snap, “You _know_ he's not! Whether or not I'm attached doesn't change the fact that he's a weak insect, incomparable to me on every level!”

“Even an insect can sting, whelp,” Kold says simply. “And any sting can have the power to kill.”

“Very nice, Papa,” Freeza replies with a roll of his eyes. “I can see you've been practicing your metaphors with all the free time you have. Speaking of which...?”

The obvious hint that Freeza _doesn't_ have free time to spare has Kold shaking his head in vague exasperation, and brushing by his son at a leisurely pace. Before he reaches the door, he offers one last warning over his shoulder, tone appropriately chilling. “If you won't accept the truth, I suppose I'll have to _make_ you.”

“Get off my station, Papa,” Freeza replies, in the most pleasantly polite tone he can muster.

It's not until icy foreboding settles in his gut an hour later that the danger occurs to him.

_'It has no such attachment to you – I have **seen this**...'_

The realization that his father has been watching Vegeta, in any fashion, has Freeza's hand up and clicking at his scouter immediately, seeking out the prince's ki. Something sick clenches in his chest when he finds the familiar number fluctuating wildly, and he tears from his office without a second thought, unable to swallow around the anxiety bunching in his throat. Every minute it takes for him to get down to the floor he needs could mean he's a minute too late. Freeza can hear the struggle even before he reaches the private training room, and moves faster than he has in decades, ripping through the door like it's tissue paper before it can even open.

The flash of bare skin in darkness has him snarling as he slams his tail into his father's shoulder, sending Kold stumbling away just enough for Freeza to slip in and catch Vegeta as he falls. Once the shaken prince is in his arms, he darts back, away from his father, and crouches over what's his, possessively protective. Vegeta's undamaged hand seeks him out, groping wildly for purchase before it finds the collar of his armor and _holds_ , and it occurs to Freeza that the prince can't _see_ in this room. Beyond what he can hear, if he can hear anything over his own gasping breath and pounding heart, Vegeta has no idea of what's going on around him, blind in a way that Freeza isn't to the searing look of malice Kold pins them with as he rights himself.

In the split second before the attack he knows is coming, Freeza hauls his prince to the door, unable to spare the time it would take to pull torn clothing back into place. Instead, he shoves Vegeta out into the hall and tells him simply to _run_. The order is obeyed at once, the wide-eyed Saiyan tearing off in a blast of frightened ki, and Freeza turns back just in time to catch the fist his father throws at him. The shockwave of the blow bends the metal walls out around them with an unholy shriek, before a tense silence settles over them, motes of dust cascading as father and son eye each other warily.

Kold is the first to step back, expression leveling as he recovers his poise, and he examines Freeza at length before pointing out lowly, “So you came to its rescue after all.”

Tail slamming on the floor to dent it before he can even stop himself, Freeza grits back, “I can't be expected to share my toys any more than _you_ can, Papa.”

“I didn't get very far,” Kold replies, as if it helps any, and he knows it doesn't. He _has_ to know, his eerie gaze warping into something truly demonic when he smirks and adds in a murmur, “But you can check the feeds to be sure.”

“I _will_ , thank you,” Freeza growls, and he knows he'll regret it the moment he does, but he can't _not_ know. Fists clenching, tightly enough to where he feels a prickle of _pain_ , he struggles to restrain himself from lunging at the threat in front of him. It won't do any good, he reminds himself bitterly. The scale of their fight would only wind up destroying everything he's built up for himself, and Kold would enjoy every _minute_ of it. “Are we _done_ here?”

The question is weighed carefully, Kold looking him over with a strange mildness he doesn't know how to read, before finally, his father sighs heavily in disappointment. “I'll leave it for now,” Kold permits with a nod. “You'll learn on your own eventually.”

It doesn't settle the more pertinent matter, so Freeza insists, “And my _pet_?”

“I said I'd leave it,” Kold says impatiently, even though he didn't, really, but it's enough to keep the peace between them. It's only further mollifying when he tells Freeza, with a flat look of disapproval, “Do as you will with what's yours.”

“I intend to.”

He checks on what's his the moment he knows Kold is gone, securing Vegeta in the relative safety of his own suite to soothe their mutual nerves; Vegeta for the assault he'd nearly endured, and Freeza for almost losing his most prized possession. For once, the touches exchanged in the ensuing calm are not rough, or idly curious, but gentle, lingering, and when Freeza finally presses his cherished pet into the sheets, each thrust is slow and steady and builds them both up to a shattering peak unlike any other. Vegeta clings to him the entire time, pleading for him breathlessly, and for a moment, Freeza can forget his father's words.

But only for a moment.

Once the Saiyan is curled up under the sheets, face pinched in uneasy sleep, Freeza slips from the bed and into his office, pulling up the camera feeds. He knows he shouldn't, that he'll regret seeing what his father had almost done to Vegeta, but he does it anyway. He thinks he can handle knowing, and soon regrets that thought, too, because seeing it is _so_ much worse than he anticipated.

Tension grips him at the sight of his father catching Vegeta from behind, covering his mouth with one massive hand and dragging him back into the shadows of the unused training room. The cameras pick up everything in that darkness, from the mild amusement on Kold's face as he holds his prey tight against his chest, to Vegeta's ineffectual squirming as he tries to break free for air. _'So small...and so_ _ **pitiful**_ _...'_ Freeza hears, gritting his teeth at how his prince is pinned and gagged with a long tail, leaving hands free to rove.

Vegeta seizes up at the uninvited touch, eyes wide and a muffled protest screaming from his throat, and already, Freeza doesn't want to see any more of this. He knows how such struggle only entertains his father, a trait passed down to both sons, and he has to bite back a growl at how Kold whispers sweetly to Vegeta, as if he cares at all. _'Are you afraid, little meekling?'_ the beast wonders, a cruel smile crossing his face as he loosens his tail, freeing Vegeta's mouth just to see if he'll get an answer.

He does, of _course_ he does, Freeza groans inwardly, Vegeta snarling the second he has air in his lungs. _'Get_ _ **off**_ _me, you sick_ _ **freak**_ _!'_ the image of his prince roars, pulling against the hold on him, and when Kold drops him with a sly grin, Freeza doesn't have to guess at what's coming. He hates every second of it when, in classic form, Vegeta whirls around to lash out at his attacker, visibly furious as he throws a fist out blindly. It explains how his wrist wound up broken, Kold leaning out of the way of each strike just long enough to show Vegeta how pointless it is, before he catches the prince's arm and drags him around, shoving him into the wall with effortless violence.

The camera feeds picked up the awful cracking sounds, both of Vegeta's bones shattering and the smack of his skull against the wall, and it's all Freeza can do to cringe through it. He's going to _kill_ his father someday, he thinks savagely, made all the more furious by the sight of the dazed look on Vegeta's face as he's pinned with Kold's bulk. Freeza swears on his murderous thoughts next, when the facsimile of his father complains mildly, _'Done struggling already? Honestly, what_ _ **does**_ _my son see in you?'_

Even on video, it's plain that the words don't register to Vegeta, who's already stunned and gasping even before a heavy hand closes around his throat. It has Freeza grudgingly relieved, knowing that he won't have to explain how it was his own father who carried out the attack, or how Vegeta would have died had he not intervened. He's also relieved, in a way that frustrates him, that Kold had taken so long to sneak off the station, forcing him to keep track of the unpredictable bastard. It gave Vegeta a chance to visit the med bay for at least a reprieving patch-up before his lord came looking for him, and striving with little success to get him to talk about what happened. Perhaps, Freeza thinks in hindsight, he should have checked the feeds _then_ , before he'd sought Vegeta out for his own peace of mind.

His skin crawls when he sees the violet glimmer of his father's tongue onscreen, lapping at the shell of Vegeta's ear with a hum of apparent approval for the taste, but Freeza forces himself to keep watching. When the tip of a thick tail begins to drag Vegeta's pants down moments later, though, the beast it belongs to chuckling lowly, he clenches his eyes shut, hatred welling in him at how his father's voice is full of anticipation. _'I suppose I'll find out,'_ Kold murmurs to the prince, and to Freeza's great relief, that's where it ends, an explosive burst of metal heralding the appearance of his own figure on the screen.

He reaches to turn the feed off, only to pause at what he sees.

At what he now knows _Kold_ sees.

The look he'd had on his face, Freeza realizes, is one of _fear_.

He hasn't felt such a thing since childhood, and certainly not for anyone other than himself, and it has him feeling numb as he clicks off the screen. Fear is weakness, _unacceptable_ weakness, and as Freeza heads back into his private chambers, hints of anxiety bubble up in him. He knows that's just what his father wants – to unsettle him with a near loss, and make him turn away from the Saiyan dozing fitfully in his bed – and a spiteful part of him wants to cast the whole event away as meaningless because of it.

But he can't. Not fully. Freeza had attacked his own _father_ to protect Vegeta, and doesn't even want to _consider_ what might have happened if he hadn't gotten there in time. The very thought, of Vegeta dying to any hand but his own, floods Freeza with the usual possessive wrath, but underneath it all, unnoticed before now, there's a distinct vulnerability that he can't shake off.

For the rest of the night, unable to help it, Freeza watches the slumbering prince, and frets to himself. He should end it, here and now, before it can affect him any further. He _knows_ he should, logically, even as he wants to deny his father's warning. But when he reaches for Vegeta's throat, gathering his ki as he smooths his palm over the bared skin, Freeza hesitates again when his pet murmurs and shifts, turning into his touch.

 _'Not yet – Vegeta's done nothing to deserve it,'_ something in his mind whispers, and Freeza knows why.

He hasn't fallen for Vegeta...but he's too attached now to kill him.

Because he would _miss_ Vegeta if he died.

Unbidden, with the urge to kill already smothered, defiance springs up in its place, Freeza casting aside for now the idea that his father might actually have a point. Why, he reasons with himself, should he let such a bossy old fool get under his skin with cheap tricks? After all, Vegeta had only been put at risk because it was _Kold_ he was up against, so now that Freeza has assurances that the Saiyan will be left alone, what else is there to worry about? And besides, it's not like he'd been afraid for _Vegeta_ – just at knowing he had an unpredictable, too-powerful bastard running amok on his station, and that he'd have to set said bastard straight to keep everything he'd worked for from falling apart.

 _'That makes sense,'_ the whispering part of his subconscious agrees, and with his brief moment of fear justified, Freeza's nerves abruptly settle. A part of him still questions whether it's wise to continue on as he is, coddling Vegeta and relaxing in his company, but the rest of him _wants_ to, so he dispels it from his mind. _'I do as I please,'_ he reminds himself.

And so he does. Just to spite his father, Freeza takes Vegeta along for his next political function, knowing that Kold will hear of it, and refers to the prince as his partner.

He's never openly admitted to their relationship before.

Vegeta stares at him for it, vaguely befuddled, but goes along with it without complaint, shrugging and nodding when some bureaucrat or another presses for validation. He even confirms that they go out together on what could feasibly be called dates. He gets annoyed as the badgering continues from there, though, Freeza glad to watch while his pet's face reddens, and when the ridiculous question of whether they're in love comes up, Vegeta snaps, “Are you _kidding_? He's a _fucking asshole_.”

Freeza laughs like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard, because it _is_ , if only for the fact that it has everyone else gasping in horror and stepping back. Although, the thought that they're recoiling from Vegeta's foul mouth, rather than any outburst they expect at the insult, is pretty hilarious, too.

But the funniest thing of all is the idea that the two of them might be in love.

They aren't in love, and won't ever be. Freeza knows that, and is perfectly fine with it. It's not how he wants things. If he'd actually fallen for Vegeta, he might have killed him the second he realized. No, even as the prince amuses and understands him, Freeza has never for an instant forgotten how vastly inferior Vegeta is to him, nor has he failed to acknowledge his pet's many flaws. Vegeta is abrasive, closed off, and arrogant to a fault, among his many other problems, and there is nothing in that to fall for.

Love is a pointless weakness, meant to be taken advantage of, and the very concept of it never fails to make Freeza sick. He can't even _comprehend_ such a thing as love – something built of selflessness and devotion so strong between two people that they could sacrifice just about anything for each other – so he doesn't try. He doesn't _need_ to know how any of it works, or of the meanings behind it, to know that he's not in love with Vegeta. Vegeta is just...

_His._

And that's all there is to it.

When Freeza tries to explain that to his _brother_ , though, he's left stewing in frustration and wondering if maybe he really _is_ becoming complacent. The exchange takes place not long after he'd openly revealed his relationship, and is as brief as all his exchanges with family tend to be, but it is no less illuminating than the disastrous visit from Kold. “You can say you're only attached because you own him, but your actions speak louder,” Cooler says, looking into his half-empty glass rather than at his brother.

More fed up with the topic than he'd already been at the start of it, Freeza tries again to defend himself. “I only stopped Father because-”

“You didn't just _stop_ him, you _attacked_ him. You struck our _father_ , over an _insect_ ,” Cooler cuts in, eyes narrowed, and for a moment, he resembles Kold enough to have Freeza unsettled and quieting. “You say love requires sacrifice? Then consider the allowances you make for this Saiyan. Days of your life, and resources from your ledgers.”

“As I told Father, I can withhold that at any time,” Freeza points out, thoroughly agitated.

Idly swirling his wine, Cooler sighs. “Yes, you can,” he agrees. “But you don't.”

“Do you know what _else_ love requires, dear brother?” Freeza begins, sweet as can be, before he snaps, “Actually _liking_ each other! And we _don't_ , so _drop it_!”

Tucking his chin in a hand, and looking very weary as he eyes Freeza, Cooler thinks for a moment before asking dully, “So when is your next date scheduled?”

“Next week,” Freeza answers without thinking. “Why?”

“Days of your life,” is all his brother mutters into his wine, and it's all Freeza can do to not smash the frosted glass right into the smug prick's face. Instead, he tells Cooler how he's sometimes tempted to end Vegeta's life, as proof that there's nothing between them, and expects to be told that he should go ahead and do it. He's stunned when Cooler just looks at him, really _looks_ at him, and says quietly, “Then perhaps it's best if you go your separate ways.”

It's the closest thing to brotherly advice that Cooler's ever given him, and so it sticks in his mind, enough to where Freeza finds himself thinking about it, every now and again, whenever things are calm around him. When another day is over, and the amusement of conflict is left behind for the silence of his quarters, noisy thoughts continue to buzz about in his mind without relent. If he's alone, the images of destruction he likes to mull over push back the peace that leaves him bored and uneasy, and Freeza plots out his future conquests to a mental chorus of thrilling screams. But at the times when Vegeta is there with him, everything else washes out, and he forgoes the usual feverish pace of his work in favor of tussling about in his bed, something he doesn't even need for anything other than sating himself in a partner. Sleep is an unfamiliar thing to Freeza, unnecessary for him, but with Vegeta tucked beneath the sheets and dozing lightly...

Sometimes he's tempted to try it. The harmless urges to sleep alongside the prince, paired with the ease of slipping into conversation with him once he wakes, never fail to put the words of Freeza's clan at the forefront of his thoughts. It doesn't necessarily matter if he makes sacrifices for Vegeta, he thinks, nor that he sets aside time to be with him. Small as they may be, Freeza makes plenty of sacrifices to maintain his empire, after all, so he can spend his days ruling it. There's not really much of a difference as far as he sees it. But he starts to recognize that it's the now-effortless nature of their relationship that raises an issue. He's getting too comfortable in his time with Vegeta, too _complacent_ , and while it's not love that he feels, it's still _weakness_.

A minor, passing comment is what has Freeza making up his mind in the end.

The buildup to the separation begins mundanely enough with having to break up another fight Vegeta's gotten into, this time with the newest member of the Ginyu Force. Already impatient to be on his way to the organization's planned acquisition, Freeza flicks the barest amount of his ki at the squat toad, and insists Vegeta go along with him for the journey. He gets his way in a heartbeat, mildly amused when his pet actually bows to him; proving a point to someone who won't get it, Freeza expects.

The trip is a short one, not even a full day, so he's not sure what to think of Vegeta's silence, given the communication link is open between their pods. With all the time Freeza spends around the prince these days, it feels _strange_ to not talk. He knows the Saiyan isn't in stasis, though, for when he makes a few lazy overtures at conversation, Vegeta responds to him, albeit with a delay and sounding distracted. When Freeza asks about it, wanting to know what's going on, all he gets in reply is unclear muttering and an unconvincing claim that it's nothing.

The planet he takes Vegeta to is full of lush tropics, a perfect spot to set up the beginnings of a booming tourist attraction, and Freeza looks forward to dealing with the scattered tribes that make it their home. There's nothing better, he thinks, than death and misery amidst such beautiful scenery as this, and it pleases him to hear Vegeta's chuckle of agreement when he says it aloud. Freeza doesn't intend to do much of the fighting, if he can help it, more intent on scouting out the best locations to build, but Vegeta clearly doesn't mind, smirking and flying off before he can even be given his orders.

Freeza lets him go, smiling all the while. Vegeta knows what to do, after all.

The few warriors the tribes can boast turn out to be tougher than expected, combining their dozens to team up against the Saiyan prince. He takes them all on with obvious relish, and even when he starts to wear down, Vegeta snarls at Freeza to back off and let him handle it. It's a fantastic fight, for being among low-level creatures, so Freeza does just that, more than happy to watch the unfolding slaughter from his hoverchair.

When the last of the planet's worms fall, Vegeta nearly drops to his knees right after them, gasping for air and soaked in sweat and blood. Most of that blood isn't his, and once he's caught his breath, he turns to Freeza with a satisfied smirk and starts to tug off his armor. “Did we get a little too _excited_ out there?” Freeza teases as he's approached, and offers out a hand to Vegeta, who takes it at once to clamber up into the hoverchair with him and settle on his lap, clad only in form-fitting blue. “I'll take that as a yes,” he decides, and laughs when the prince steals the scouter off his face, clicking it off and tossing it aside somewhere.

“You talk too much,” Vegeta tells him, plucking off his own half-broken scouter to discard it just the same, and he arches into Freeza's hands when they slide up his sides to remove his top. “Ahh... _fuck_ , yes...” Head tossing as he's firmly caressed, Vegeta shifts his hips down against Freeza, grinning at the hum of approval he gets.

One hand roaming down and beneath fabric to squeeze at supple flesh, Freeza appreciates the strangled whine it pulls from his pet, always liking how revved up and needy Vegeta gets after a good battle. “You haven't been talking _enough_ , I think,” Freeza remarks, “but I expect I'll be hearing plenty of indecency from your mouth for the next...twenty minutes? Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes sounds _great_ ,” Vegeta sighs out, tossing his gloves aside and wrapping his arms around Freeza's neck. “I'll prob'ly collapse afterward, though. M'fuckin' _beat_.” He certainly looks it, but still has plenty of energy left to rock his hips and deeply groan as his tail is ruffled, all the way down from tip to spine in a way that has him shaking with lust.

It's a lovely sight as always, and Freeza does it again, dragging his fingers through the fur to have Vegeta gasping and squirming against him. “Ride me,” he commands in a whisper, sending a shudder through the prince, who reaches between them to smooth his palm over black fabric. Freeza hisses in a breath as he's bared and squeezed, and grabs for the hem of Vegeta's pants, dragging them down just enough for what's needed. “ _Now_ ,” he insists, despite that there's been no preparation. As long as the prince's nerves are still tuned to the frantic song of battle, Freeza knows by now that any pain will be just as welcomed as the pleasure. It's gratifying at how quickly he's obeyed, Vegeta adjusting just enough to where he can guide Freeza into him, a moan rushing from the prince at the burn of being slowly opened around his lord.

A high-pitched series of beeps interrupts before they can go any further, Freeza's scouter reactivating for an emergency call, and it's met with a shared groan of exasperation. When Freeza climbs out to fetch the device, Vegeta slumps against the interior of the hoverchair with a disgruntled frown, apparently not altogether interested in taking care of matters himself. Much to their dismay, the impending call is actually an important one, Freeza snapping instantly into business mode even as he paces around with an obvious bulge under his armor.

With Freeza's voice pitching up in frustration the longer he speaks, Vegeta clearly sees that it's going to take a while, for he abandons the hoverchair in favor of laying out in soft grass, kicking his boots off and away so he can get comfortable. The gentle breeze winding around him must be soothing, as after a while of watching clouds skid across the violet sky, he drifts off a little, more skilled than most in ignoring a furiously raving tyrant. He's woken up hardly half an hour later when Freeza plops down on the ground next to him, demanding attention, still livid from the interruption, and loudly complaining about all the incompetence of the people around him, as if a dead-tired Saiyan can do anything about any of that.

When Freeza shifts into no longer referring to his minions as people, the familiar terms of 'insects' and 'worms' and 'vermin' getting thrown around, Vegeta sighs and waits for a break in the yelling. As soon as his lord takes a breath, he asks mildly, “Have you ever thought about getting a hobby?”

“ _What_?!” Freeza exclaims, instantly derailed and turning sharply to Vegeta.

Gathering his patience, the prince replies, despite knowing he shouldn't, “Something to do in your-”

“I _know_ what a hobby is!” Freeza spits before he can finish, malice building on his features before something occurs to him, and he stops short, eyes wide. Bubbling wrath disarmed in a heartbeat, vague befuddlement skips across his face instead as he stares down at Vegeta, and he asks hesitantly, “Do _you_...?”

“Have a hobby?” Vegeta finishes for him. “Sure. Gotta do _something_ when I'm not training.” He shifts in discomfort at the expectant look that follows on Freeza's face, and though he frowns a little, he obliges, admitting, “I read.” The tyrant's brows raise immediately, having never expected that, and once it sinks in, a disbelieving grin starts to form on his face. “Laugh and I don't talk to you for a week,” Vegeta warns, eyes narrowing. “And if you _tell_ anyone, I won't talk to you _ever_.”

It's enough of a threat to have Freeza giving in, with the slightest of pouts that he'll never admit to. By the way Vegeta rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to the clouds instead, though, the slight pouting is most definitely a thing that is happening. Unable to suppress his curiosity, Freeza scoots closer, and when he's not presented the answers he wants, he sits twiddling his thumbs before prompting, _very_ casually, “So. ... _Reading_.” Vegeta just confirms it with a bored 'yeah' like it's nothing, but with how vastly temperamental the Saiyan can be, it's still quite a concept to take in, so Freeza presses on, “ _You_ , though. You _read_.”

Vaguely insulted, Vegeta frowns up at him. “Why else do you think I can talk circles around my men?” he asks sourly.

“Can they _not_ read?” Freeza asks at once, his upper lip curling in disdain.

“They _can_ , they just _don't_ ,” Vegeta replies waspishly, before looking away again, off into the distance at a rise of black mountains. He doesn't speak for a moment, but when he does, his voice is quieter. “They don't really...get it. The appeal.” It doesn't surprise Freeza in the least, but the prince has already dropped quite a surprising bombshell on him, much as usual, so it's probably for the best. Knowing that he's being watched, and with lingering confusion, Vegeta says, as if in explanation, “Knowledge is it's own kind of power.”

“I'm very much aware,” Freeza replies, condescending even in agreement. “Although, it sounds more like you _study_ as a hobby, rather than _read_.”

Despite being visibly annoyed at the drawling disdain, Vegeta shrugs one shoulder and clarifies, “I do both. Study when shipping out, and stories on the way back.”

It explains why he'd been so distracted on the trip to this world, at least, and Freeza sits with a hand at his chin, considering and tapping at his elbow with the other hand. “What _genre_?” he asks finally, and by the flat look on Vegeta's face, the question was entirely expected. “Aside from action, of course – I expect that's a given.” Freeza waves a lazy hand, as if to dismiss the genre entirely.

Grunting noncommittally, Vegeta mutters, “You get three guesses. After that, I'm taking a nap.”

“Adventure,” Freeza guesses straight away.

Vegeta stares at him dully for it. “That's basically the same as action, so...good job,” he replies, and his voice is as dull as his stare.

Mildly flustered, Freeza tries again, actually thinking it over a little before asking, “Horror?”

Pulling a face, Vegeta shakes his head. “I have a hard enough time sleeping without someone _else's_ nightmares in my head,” he grumbles, frowning. “No, thanks.”

It leaves Freeza without any feasible guesses, given how his pet has always been closed off when it comes to talking about personal things, so he wracks through the different genres in his mind for a bit. With a sly grin, he ends up not even bothering to be serious with his last guess, and asks innocently, “How about romance?” When Vegeta cringes and turns away, a slight flush of pink dusting his cheeks, Freeza's mouth just about drops open in disbelief. “ _No_...” he starts slowly. “You're _kidding_.” Amusement floods him then, and with the threat of laughter in his voice, Freeza asks, “ _Romance_ , Vegeta? _Really_?”

“The drama is _funny_ , okay?!” Vegeta snaps, face and ears pink with embarrassment. Recognizing the widening grin on Freeza's face, the one that always precedes him bursting into laughter, Vegeta sits up to shove his face right up to his lord's. “Laugh at me, and not only will I not talk to you for a week, but I'll read the sappiest fucking romance book I can find, and I _won't_ share the _fun parts_ with you later,” he growls in barely-suppressed anger.

Scarcely able to hold in his snickering, and with his voice strained from the effort, Freeza points out, “That's _erotica_ , not romance.”

“Depends on the detail,” Vegeta retorts sourly, flopping back into the grass with his nose stuck up and away, massively petulant when he adds, “Either way, I won't be sharing.”

Feigning dismay, Freeza places a hand over his chest. “I'm _hurt_ , Vegeta,” he lies, so badly he can't even maintain the false dismay, a smile on his face as he continues to pester his pet. “I've not laughed at you _once_ , and yet you still intend to deny me. What _ever_ shall I do?” he sighs dramatically.

Vegeta covers his eyes with an arm so he doesn't have to look at the source of his annoyance, and bites back, “Go fuck _yourself_ for once. I'm taking a nap.” When Freeza huffs at him, there's a beat of hesitation before he gives in, audibly exasperated. “Gods, _fine_. Make it quick.”

“I was under the impression that _you_ would be sharing,” Freeza reminds him, the smug smirk on his face almost lost on the one it's meant for.

Dropping his arm from his face, and rolling his eyes at the tyrant's expression, Vegeta states dryly, “'The Dark Moon of Androset', chapter fifteen. The villain seduces the fae warrior, taking them on their back in a field. There's your setting – make it happen.”

“Quickly, I take it?” Freeza asks, unimpressed, but still smirking at their banter.

Vegeta covers his eyes again. “I am _so_ fucking tired,” he grumbles.

As he obligingly starts stripping off Vegeta's pants, the only remaining bit of clothing on him, Freeza shushes him playfully. “Shh; you're ruining the scene.”

“If _this_ were in a novel, I'd _burn_ it,” Vegeta mutters back, but still lifts his hips without protest to aid in the swift removal of his pants. When Freeza sits up to start pulling off his own armor, visibly impatient, the prince doesn't bother much with helping, only reaching out blindly to find and tug down on the black hem at his lord's waist. He smirks lazily when Freeza swats his hand away, removes the article personally, and kneels over him to push between his thighs.

With the heat of battle well since cooled, Freeza doesn't shove in completely dry, knowing that Vegeta won't be half as loose and needy for pain as before. He's tempted, just to have the benefit of spilled blood to ease his passage, but doesn't feel like having his pet kick at him for it. It used to be strange, years ago, sucking at his own fingers to slick them up, but every time he does it now, knowing that soon he'll be pressing them into Vegeta to have him panting and craving the ensuing domination, Freeza shudders with anticipation.

The moment of preparation is quick, fingers scissoring briefly before he twists his wrist and draws out, but it has a long, appreciative moan spilling from Vegeta, a sign that he's more than ready for his lord. Freeza maneuvers the prince hard enough to bruise, smirking at how the treatment has Vegeta's thighs falling open for him, and gladly takes the opening he's given. He rams in hard with a groan of satisfaction, barely hearing the strangled scream of his toy over the white roar of pleasure rushing through him, but when he feels hands grasping desperately at his hips, urging him to move, Freeza bursts into a frantic, pounding rhythm to suit them both.

They've always done things roughly – save for once, after the near-disaster they don't speak of, and that lone outlier isn't spoken of, either – and more often than not, Freeza leaves the prince unable to walk for a good hour or so. Vegeta takes it eagerly, though, and this time is no different, pressing into every sharp thrust like he's starving for it. Unbidden, the conversation they'd had flits at the edges of Freeza's mind, and as his pet's hands slide up for purchase on his shoulders, ragged gasps echoing wonderfully as he pins and plunders, he thinks that, probably, the scene Vegeta had described wasn't anything _remotely_ like this.

 _Romance_ , Freeza recalls with an amazed shake of his head, looking down at his pleasure-dazed conquest in thought, pace not faltering for a moment as he slams in hard enough to draw out the scream he likes best. Vegeta hardly looks conscious of what's going on around him anymore, focusing solely on the carnal desires of his body with half-lidded eyes, and when his mouth slacks to let out a shuddering whimper, it has a playful urge creeping up in the tyrant. Pushing closer to have their chests pressed flush, Freeza purrs in approval at how Vegeta clings to him, head tilting to allow his lord to suckle a path up his neck, leaving red spots that will linger for days. Then, with a hand tucking under and up to bury into black hair, pulling just enough to have Vegeta keening, Freeza turns the prince's face back to him, leans down, and seals their mouths together.

It's the first time they've ever kissed.

Vegeta moans into it, lips parting to allow Freeza's tongue to lap at his own, but when he realizes what's happening around the crashing sensation in him, he jerks, startled. The kiss is broken when he turns his head away, brows furrowed as he frowns up at Freeza. “Could you _not_?” he pants out. “That's _weird_.”

Amused and smirking, his playful urge satisfied, Freeza asks, “And _this_ isn't?” He swivels his hips just so, pressing in deep, and Vegeta has to swallow down a lewd groan.

“Ngh-! That's- that's _different_ ,” the prince insists, striving to avoid a second, far more mocking peck on the lips by tilting his chin up, and protesting, “Kissing is- It's for-” Cheeks reddening, Vegeta finishes lamely, “We're not _like_ that.”

Freeza _knows_ they're not, but the apparent refusal to take the joke for what it is has annoyance cropping up, and he scowls down at Vegeta even as he rocks into his body. “I was only _playing_ ,” he huffs, and Vegeta's head thumps back against the grass.

“ _Gods_ , you're such a piece of shit,” he groans deeply, and it isn't clear if the tone is from pleasure or frustration. Possibly both, Freeza thinks, and nips at Vegeta's shoulder in retaliation for the insult. His plaything trembles appropriately, with a bitten-off sound that has him feeling a little better about it, until his efforts below are met with further complaining. “Fuck, would you go _harder_?” Vegeta pleads breathlessly. “I'm not going to _break_ if you-”

The merciless thrusts Freeza takes to thankfully shut him up, save for his increasingly desperate moans, and it isn't long before the brutal pace has them both nearing the blinding brink of climax. Freeza bites into the bare flesh of his toy's shoulder when pure feeling slams through him, the copper tang of blood in his mouth topping it off perfectly, and Vegeta holds tight to him with a broken cry, so close but needing more. One last heavy thrust has him screaming, wet heat coating their stomachs, and Freeza slumps bonelessly on top of the prince as they ride out the aftershocks together, limbs tangled and shaking.

Once they've caught their breath, Vegeta laughs under him, seemingly unprompted. “Thought you wanted me to ride you,” he teases, half-smirking.

“Am I not allowed to change my mind?” Freeza shoots back, not really irritated, but feeling strangely ill at ease.

“If it means I get my way? Go for it,” Vegeta chuckles, and falls soundly to sleep in the grass, unaware of the resolution he's sealed in his lord's mind. With the words so plainly laid out, and from the mouth of his own pet, no less, Freeza can't deny it anymore.

He's giving too much, and eventually, he won't know when to quit.

It has to end.

Hours later, when Vegeta wakes up and reaches for him, Freeza shifts away, avoiding the Saiyan's touch and the confused gaze that follows. Despite the decision he's come to, knowing that it'll be better for him this way, it's hard for Freeza to give up something he's gotten so used to. “What's your problem _now_?” Vegeta grumbles, sitting up and looking around for his pants.

“I really ought to kill you,” Freeza tells him quietly.

Vegeta hesitates, one leg half-clothed in blue, but isn't fazed. “You won't,” he replies, continuing to dress undeterred.

“I _ought_ to.” Freeza sits there, feeling tired and vaguely cheated, with his back to the prince, knowing that he's right – that he _should_ kill Vegeta. It's the worst he's ever felt, and he's going to have to spend the rest of his life pretending it doesn't bother him, because he also knows that _Vegeta_ is right – he's not going to do it. That subtle urge is still there, whispering for him to cut down the proof of his attachment, just to see if it'll punch a hole in his heart the way people say it does, losing someone important. But between that urge and the depth of his fondness...

The fondness wins out.

A throat clears, drawing his attention, and Freeza stares up at his one foolish weakness, standing a short distance away and tugging on the last of his armor. “What else do you want me to do here?” Vegeta asks, and gods, but it would be a _waste_ to kill him, too. Such a useful warrior...

Trying not to think about the difference between mere separation and the finality of death – at least with separation, he'll still _see_ the prince – Freeza shakes his head. “Return to the station,” he tells Vegeta. “I'll finish it up.”

Brows raising in surprise, the Saiyan watches him for a long moment, confusion clouding his face – such striking features, especially when lost to rapture – before understanding settles in. It's too obvious for the clever prince to miss, simply because he'd been invited to go along, so they could spend time together. Freeza grits his teeth when the inevitable comes. “You don't want me to stay,” Vegeta says, eyes narrowed and calculating.

“No, I don't,” Freeza replies, even though he very much does. “We're done.”

Vegeta considers that, expression frustratingly calm, before he shrugs and accepts it, like it's meaningless. “Sure. That's fine.” And that's all he says, before he heads off back to his pod without so much as a parting glance.

It's odd, really, how it leaves Freeza feeling rejected.

He throws himself into his work after that, trying not to think about how a part of him _wanted_ Vegeta to be upset about it. Freeza had favored him, granted him a better life than what he'd had before, and yet the prince showed no reaction whatsoever to the reality of _losing_ that, like it didn't _matter_ to him. It tears at the tyrant – even as he lays out plans for entertainment districts, notes the best locations on the planet to attract tourists, and clears out the remnants of destroyed villages – and his whirling thoughts continue to plague him no matter how he tries to ignore them.

When he's finally worn out and ready to return to his station, Freeza looks down on the lovely planet from his open pod, knowing how profitable it will be when it's finished...

And he destroys it.

Life is mind-rendingly dull after that, going back to his old routine of watching all the insects scurry through his hive. Numb, but with rising impatience, Freeza sits through every last one of Zarbon's flowery speeches like he cares, tolerates Dodoria's jokes like they're not awful, and pretends he doesn't occasionally see a flash of color amid the bland tones of his days. No, the rare times Vegeta stands before him now, Freeza looks through the prince like he's not really there, ignoring the possessive howling at the back of his mind to take back what's his.

Vegeta never even offers so much as a hint that anything is different for him without Freeza's support, and that might be the worst part of it all. It has his lord feeling vaguely agitated, the more he notices how insignificant his impact on Vegeta's life seems to be. When the agitation grows too great for him to bear, Freeza lets it out in one petty, vindictive strike, and resets the commissary guidelines for the Saiyans' meals back to their old, insufficient default.

One of Vegeta's men goes missing after that, and a few months later, Freeza is stunned and furious to learn that the other two are gone, as well. They've abandoned their next purging mission entirely, shipping off into absolute nowhere space with their scouter transmitters turned off. From the life signs of his pod, Vegeta is still alive...

But the next time Freeza gets hold of him, he won't be.

Now that Vegeta's gone off on his own, willfully disobeying and no doubt plotting to betray his lord, much as Kold had warned all those years ago, Freeza swears up and down to himself that this is the opportunity he's been waiting for. There's no reason for him to resist his urge to kill the prince anymore, and he expects it will make him feel better, anyway. Even after separating from Vegeta, it hadn't made the _fondness_ go away. It's only been left to simmer endlessly in his chest, pushing to get out like a bomb ready to go off, making Freeza feel antsy and aggravated and _weaker_ at how he has no way to express or vent it. He doesn't know if killing Vegeta will finally make that feeling settle, or if it will replace it with something worse, but with the situation as it stands, he doesn't really care.

Until his techs reactivate the communication line on the Saiyans' scouters, and Freeza hears every last word of the conversation on Earth.

_Dragon Balls._

He could _kiss_ Vegeta again, he thinks, immersing himself in fleet preparations for the departure to Namek. Kiss him, and then beat the hell out of him, before...whatever else Freeza can think of. _Maybe_ killing him afterward. But if Freeza can gather these wish-granting trinkets, and become immortal, would the weakness of keeping Vegeta close even _matter_ anymore? Would _any_ weakness matter? Nothing could harm him...

Freeza thinks it over, in a better mood than he's been since he'd broken things off, and decides that he's not actually mad enough to kill Vegeta for running away. He _is_ mad enough to want to punish him, though, and terribly so, to the degree that he wonders if it would even be possible to force himself on the prince at this point. They'd gotten so used to intimacy, it might not faze Vegeta at _all_. Smirking as he finalizes the mission, the better part of his army drafted into going along, Freeza figures that the least he can do is try.

There's no question in his mind that he'll have Vegeta back and on his knees again soon. He's just not expecting _how_ soon, the prince's attack ball burning through the station's atmosphere shortly after the fleet departs. A trio of nameless faces deliver the message, citing how Vegeta had arrived hooked up to his pod's life-support system, his ki whittled down to almost nothing, and Freeza is struck with an overwhelming sense of foreboding.

Whatever Vegeta had faced on Earth, he's come back almost dead.

With that disconcerting realization laid out, Freeza is sorely tempted to turn around, if only to find out how it happened. But with the prize of immortality dangling before him, he pushes the urge back and presses onward, intent on reaching Namek before Vegeta can fully heal. It's a sure thing that once the Saiyan is back on his feet, he'll ship straight off again, with the same goal in mind as Freeza.

Rather than delay the mission, he asks for a full report on Vegeta's status, and goes deathly still and silent when he's told that the medics had called for the prince to be salved and bandaged, to ensure a slow recovery for going off without permission. The lead messenger claims it to be a fitting punishment, sounding smug about it, and Freeza fires a precise ki beam through the fool's heart. “Put him in a tank,” he bites out as the body falls. When no one moves, other than to tremble in confused fear, Freeza snarls, “Tell those useless fucking medics to put Vegeta in a tank – _now_!”

He regrets that decision a week later, once they've settled on Namek to put the operation into motion. _Oh_ , how he regrets it. With two of the wish orbs still left to collect, Freeza finds the mission in jeopardy immediately upon Vegeta's arrival, the prince setting out on a stealth rampage that costs the lives of several of the organization's strongest fighters. With the inevitable boost Vegeta was sure to get upon reviving from the brink of death, Freeza should have known it would happen, especially after the very first conversation he'd ever had with the Saiyan. He's _always_ known that Vegeta would kill every last person who's ever wronged him, the very moment he was strong enough for it. But while Cui's death comes as no surprise, it stuns Freeza to learn that even his closest officers can't quite handle the problem anymore.

Zarbon manages, barely, but comes back bearing the possibility that he'd killed the Saiyan, and Freeza's temper rises to the surface before he can tamp it down and control it. His anger with Vegeta fills him with vindictive pleasure, but the lingering affection burns in refusal, everything in him screaming that he should rip his own officer to shreds. Freeza vents the explosive energy on another nameless face, shaking with fury, before demanding for Zarbon to search out Vegeta's body. There's the question of a missing Dragon Ball to be answered, and more than that, he has to _know_ if his wretched, troublesome plaything is dead or not.

Because if _not_ , Freeza will make him regret every last breath he's taken since stepping foot on Namek.

He's not sure how to feel when Zarbon obediently returns bearing the prince's unconscious form, sopping wet and broken all over again. Conflict rages in him – the desire to torment Vegeta into madness before killing him, the relief at having him back again to hold onto forever – and Freeza struggles to keep it contained. He needs to find the last two Dragon Balls, and if he loses control, immortality could slip from his grasp for good. If there's one thing he's sure of, though, as he stops by the med bay to check on his recovering captive, it's that he feels marvelously _alive_ again.

Freeza looks forward to the moment Vegeta wakes up, to be pulled from the medical tank and tortured into revealing the sixth ball's location. He ought to die, after that, but Freeza's sadistic and possessive nature has him thinking that, actually, chaining the prince up permanently to his bed would be a _much_ crueler fate. Vegeta's pride could never survive being stripped of all power, unable to do battle ever again, and Freeza knows from experience that Saiyans don't do well in captivity.

His experience with how _crafty_ Vegeta can be, however, manages to fail him entirely.

All five of the orbs he's collected are stolen, the ship too badly damaged to function, and all of Freeza's careful planning is crumbling apart. His sociable facade starts to fail him, too, his viciously callous and violent temperament surging forth at the many setbacks, and it has what few minions are left fleeing from his path. Namek itself takes most of Freeza's abuse, massive blasts of his enraged ki ripping across the planet as he fumes in place, impatient for the Ginyu Force to arrive and clean up the mess Vegeta's made.

The bed and chains idea goes firmly out the window sometime after that, once Ginyu and his men are dropping like flies all across Namek. Instead, Freeza solemnly swears that once Vegeta faces him again, the prince will know fear like never before.

He will know _pain_ like never before.

It's about time Freeza got a certain urge out of his system, and after all...he'd made a promise, long ago and with Vegeta curled up next to him. Now that his plaything has strayed, Freeza is going to take his sweet time in breaking down and ruining what's always been his, before _destroying_ it, completely and utterly.

Vegeta is going to _die_.

This time, Freeza keeps that promise, relishing the deepening terror on the prince's face when the final clash begins later. Vegeta should have known better, especially after denying the tyrant his one chance at immortality, the Dragon Balls nothing more than cold stones at the wayside. But then, Vegeta has always been foolish, and arrogant, nothing more than a stubborn monkey with delusions of grandeur, and now, Freeza fully intends to teach him his place.

He doesn't start with the main course, though – oh, no. Freeza focuses on the weak insects that have tagged along instead, swatting them this way and that like the insignificant gnats they are to show Vegeta just how in over his head he's gotten. Every boost in power, every transformation, gives Freeza more fuel to add to the pyres of fear, carefully utilized in a slow and masterful intimidation. By the time he's taken on his true form, and ready to put down his disobedient pet for good, Freeza knows that it's done its work this time around.

So very long ago, a young and impetuous Vegeta had boldly shut down the tyrant's intimidation, back during their very first conversation in the office. Nearly fifteen years later, however, an older and arguably wiser Vegeta is barely able to hide his desperation, limbs trembling even as he dives into battle without hesitation, headstrong to the bitter end. He goes so far as to proclaim himself a figure of legend, despite that his skills and tactics are failing him, but it doesn't take long before he resorts to throwing his power around however he can, in hopes of landing just a single hit. It's not enough, and won't ever be, yet it seems like an eternity goes by before he realizes that Freeza has yet to even start trying. The moment he _does_ , though, is glorious beyond measure.

Vegeta hasn't cried since he was but a squalling toddler, wrapped in his mother's arms. Freeza knows this, has found himself occasionally frustrated that – despite everything – the Saiyan never broke down, not once, even in the relative privacy of his dorm. But on the purged planet of Namek, when the hopelessness of his situation finally sets in, Vegeta stares down in numb horror at his lord, unharmed and unfazed by his every last attack, and gives up completely, tears brimming in his dark eyes.

He knows fear, like never before...

And then, he knows pain like never before, Freeza slowly and carefully breaking the already shattered prince, and loving every last minute of it. For the first time, his sadism is _personal_ , each sharp impact he delivers deeply gratifying as he torments his prey, for no reason other than _wanting to_. There's so very little to be gained from it, seeing Vegeta's face pinched in anguish, or hearing him cry out at the particularly brutal strikes, because Freeza _knows_ his toy is weak and broken and no longer able to play. And yet the punishment continues regardless, for spiteful vindication and the simple pleasure of it, because he _wants_ to make him suffer.

When searing ki finally pierces through Vegeta's heart, red blood spattering from his mouth and onto the dirt, Freeza is flooded with an unbridled satisfaction beyond any possible compare. There's a hollow, stinging loss which flows beneath it all, one that will surely surge to the forefront later, but the incomparable high of killing his only attachment keeps it faded in the background for now, letting him ignore it so he can bask in his triumph. His weakness is gone, passed from the world with trailing tears and a desperate plea, and Freeza knows then that his superiority is beyond measure, unquestionable, and will always be so.

He never expects it will all fall apart to Son Goku.

The new Saiyan that stands before him, naive and impertinent and mourning for _Vegeta_ of all people, is like nothing Freeza has ever encountered before. He sees through the tyrant just as his prince did – knowing that what he faces can scarcely comprehend the idea of other lives having meaning, beyond whatever use they can serve – but Son Goku has no interest in turning that knowledge to his advantage. When they shift into position, forms tight with bracing ki, Freeza knows that all this Saiyan sees in him is another opponent, a challenge to rise against and attempt to overcome. A _disgusting_ creature...

But a _fun_ one, nevertheless. Although he doesn't yet have to tap into the greatest reserves of his power, Freeza _does_ have to keep on his toes throughout the ensuing battle, for Son Goku is endlessly creative in his strategies. He has natural talent, something that Freeza grudgingly admits to himself when he's caught unaware and kicked straight into a mountain, in a way that _hurts_ , like nothing has since childhood. It's really no wonder that Vegeta had pleaded for this man to avenge the Saiyan race. It is _such_ a waste, though, that Son Goku won't use his talents for anything worthwhile, even when the offer is extended to him later.

It means Freeza has to kill him, too.

He finds that task trickier than expected, and mildly aggravating as well, for even as Freeza knocks his newest plaything around in a series of games that should only be fun for _him_ , it doesn't really seem to bother the Saiyan all that much. It _hurts_ him, that much is clear, and yet Son Goku gets up time and again with an honest to goodness _grin_ on his face, like he's _enjoying_ himself. He even compliments Freeza's power, appropriately amazed by it, and it _would_ have been a boost to the ego, if not for it being followed up with what the moron surely thinks is helpful advice.

According to Son Goku, his defense needs work.

Freeza blasts the bastard halfway to hell for that one, and is absolutely pissed when it fails to accomplish anything useful, like providing him with another dead body. He gets his first taste of mortal terror not long after that, the gnats from before rushing in to aid Son Goku, all so the Saiyan can pull yet another clever trick from his vast arsenal. The enormous ki bomb nearly gets Freeza killed, hurting more than anything else ever has, and it fills him up with a terrible fury that refuses to be sated until he slaughters every last person standing in his path.

The joy of killing Son Goku's friends in front of him wears off _frightfully_ quick. Once his opponent is wreathed in gold aura, Freeza gets a taste of just how frustrating life must have been for Vegeta, having to try so exhaustively hard, over and over and with little success. Though it's an unexpected treat, being able to unleash the entirety of his power against someone who can handle it, Freeza is distinctly aware of the tight spot he's landed himself in, purely by his own designs.

If he hadn't kept Vegeta all those years ago...a Super Saiyan wouldn't be standing against him now.

No longer able to land any decisive blows – none that don't leave Son Goku smirking in grim satisfaction, at least – Freeza is left desperate in a way he's never been before, fighting on with dogged persistence despite the dawning fact that he's _losing_. He's never fought so hard in his life, not against someone he instinctively knows is stronger, and the irony of it doesn't even occur to Freeza until the planet is about to blow, scant minutes later, and his very body is strewn across the ground, rent apart by his own attack.

He's been doing the very same thing he always looked down on others for. Rather than accepting the inevitable, and settling obediently into place beneath someone stronger...Freeza has been insisting upon his own value and superiority, and squirming rebelliously against the inherent misfortunes of his weakness.

Just like a worthless insect.

The thought alone threatens to break Freeza, and very nearly does when Son Goku – the legendary Super Saiyan, born from merciless wrath – takes _pity_ on him, offering not just a second, but a _third_ chance at life. Start fresh, he's told, like such a thing is at all possible for someone raised on conflict and malice, anger and terror and untold suffering, and Freeza doesn't _know_ anything else, the mere thought of change unsettling in the extreme. He's a creature of habit, after all, and so full of what he's familiar with – the boiling hate and rage – that all he knows to do is hurl everything he's got into one last ditch effort, fired straight at his enemy's retreating back.

When Son Goku's final blast slams into him, swallows him whole in agony, Freeza feels a fear unlike any other. It is the fear of one who has always believed himself as being above it all, looking in through glass at the mess of life's misery, but never truly playing a part of it...only to learn he's never been anything more than another insect scurrying along with the rest.

He fears that, all along, he was only ever the king of a crumbling hive.

He wakes up in pieces, gasping in anguish, with a dark and massive figure looming over him. “Didn't I tell you, whelp?” a haughty voice chides, before breath like ice rushes against his cheek, his father leaning in close to finish the lesson in a final, poisonous whisper.

“ _Even an insect can sting_.”

**Author's Note:**

> This can technically stand alone, but there are some points that could stand to be elaborated on if I felt like adding more chapters. Points that I have, in fact, put more thought into than this piece alone might indicate. Points like the actual how and why of Vegeta agreeing to “date” Freeza (which has a lot to do with Cooler's mentioned meddling, albeit in a way that blows up _spectacularly_ in the face of his Entire Family), what Vegeta thought and felt about numerous parts of the affair, and also the variety of reasons Nappa and Raditz went along with the whole disaster. Not to mention Freeza's expansive library of issues. HO boy. If I ever decide to add on to this, I will probably (read: DEFINITELY) go further into crack-ship territory, though – I’m talkin’ Goku/Vegeta/Freeza here – so it might be best if I leave it as-is. o.o
> 
> Here is one additional artwork vaguely related to this fic, featuring one of Kold's 'toys':  
>   
> Her name is Mint, and before being captured, she was basically a space pirate who could summon magic weapons to fight with. She's not Freeza or Cooler's mom, but I do have additional headcanons for Freeza's species that explain why she's in this "family photo" - mostly that they reproduce parasitically, and the babies (typically) tear the host apart when they're ready to be born, because of course I gotta make things even more fucked up than they already are. :] Mint managed to survive, obviously, because she's a badass. (As for how this is related, if I wrote more chapters to this, she would show up at some point to make things Very Awkward for Freeza. Because Awkward Freeza Time is _always_ a good time.)
> 
> Final addendum: As I have no idea how to respond to effusive praise beyond hapless babbling of the grateful sort, which I don't feel is all that effective in actually expressing my appreciation, I'm considering this fic a gift to a recent reviewer (simply called 'A'), who left two separate walls of positive feedback on my companion fics 'Bottom of the Glass' and 'Topped Off'. Without their wonderful walls of text to remind me that I'm probably not as bad of a writer as I always think I am, I very likely would have let this whole fic collect dust for a few more years.
> 
> I MAY also have plot-bunnies bouncing around in my head for follow-ups to both those other stories, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself just yet. Mostly because I worry that writing follow-ups will ruin what I've already written somehow. (See again: I always think I'm a bad writer.) 8|;


End file.
